This study anonymously screened 13,332 individuals worldwide for psychological symptoms related to Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic from March 29 th to April 14 th , 2020. A total of n=12,817 responses were considered valid with responses from 12 featured countries and five WHO regions. Female gender, pre-existing psychiatric condition, and prior exposure to trauma were identified as notable risk factors, whereas optimism, ability to share concerns with family and friends like usual, positive prediction about COVID-19, and daily exercise predicted fewer psychological symptoms. These results could aid in dynamic optimization of mental health services during and following COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: To ascertain factors associated with worsening of psychiatric conditions during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Methods: This study anonymously examined 2,734 psychiatric patients worldwide for worsening of their preexisting psychiatric conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. An independent clinical investigation of 318 psychiatric patients from United States was used for verification.Results: Valid responses mainly from 12 featured countries indicated self-reported worsening of psychiatric conditions in two-thirds of the patients assessed that was through their significantly higher scores on scales for general psychological disturbance, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression. Female gender, feeling no control of the situation, reporting dissatisfaction with the response of the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reduced interaction with family and friends increased the worsening of preexisting psychiatric conditions, whereas optimism, ability to share concerns with family and friends, and using social media like usual were associated with less worsening. An independent clinical investigation from the United States confirmed worsening of psychiatric conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic based on identification of new symptoms that necessitated clinical interventions such as dose adjustment or starting new medications in more than half of the patients.Conclusions: More than half of the patients are experiencing worsening of their psychiatric conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study anonymously screened 13,332 individuals worldwide for psychological symptoms related to Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic from March 29th to April 14th, 2020. A total of n=12,817 responses were considered valid with responses from 12 featured countries and five WHO regions. Female gender, pre-existing psychiatric condition, and prior exposure to trauma were identified as notable risk factors, whereas optimism, ability to share concerns with family and friends like usual, positive prediction about COVID-19, and daily exercise predicted fewer psychological symptoms. These results could aid in dynamic optimization of mental health services during and following COVID-19 pandemic.

This study anonymously examined 2,734 psychiatric patients worldwide for worsening of their pre-existing psychiatric condition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Valid responses mainly from 12 featured countries indicated self-reported worsening of psychiatric conditions in 2/3rd of the patients assessed that was validated through their significantly higher scores on scales for general psychological disturbance, post- traumatic stress disorder, and depression. Female gender, feeling no control of the situation and reporting dissatisfaction with the response of the state during the COVID- 19 pandemic, and reduced interaction with family and friends increased the worsening of pre-existing psychiatric conditions, whereas optimism, ability to share concerns with family and friends and using social media like usual were associated with less worsening. An independent clinical investigation from the USA confirmed worsening of psychiatric conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic based on identification of new symptoms that necessiated clinical interventions such as dose adjustment or starting new medications in more than half of the patients.

This study anonymously examined 2,734 psychiatric patients worldwide for worseningof their pre-existing psychiatric condition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Validresponses mainly from 12 featured countries indicated self-reported worsening ofpsychiatric conditions in 2/3rd of the patients assessed that was validated through theirsignificantly higher scores on scales for general psychological disturbance, posttraumaticstress disorder, and depression. Female gender, feeling no control of thesituation and reporting dissatisfaction with the response of the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reduced interaction with family and friends increased the worseningof pre-existing psychiatric conditions, whereas optimism, ability to share concerns withfamily and friends and using social media like usual were associated with lessworsening. An independent clinical investigation from the USA confirmed worseningof psychiatric conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic based on identification of newsymptoms that necessitated clinical interventions such as dose adjustment or startingnew medications in more than half of the patients.

It is known that cortical networks operate on the edge of instability, in which oscillations can appear. However, the influence of this dynamic regime on performance in decision making, is not well understood. In this work, we propose a population model of decision making based on a winner-take-all mechanism. Using this model, we demonstrate that local slow inhibition within the competing neuronal populations can lead to Hopf bifurcation. At the edge of instability, the system exhibits ambiguity in the decision making, which can account for the perceptual switches observed in human experiments. We further validate this model with fMRI datasets from an experiment on semantic priming in perception of ambivalent (male versus female) faces. We demonstrate that the model can correctly predict the drop in the variance of the BOLD within the Superior Parietal Area and Inferior Parietal Area while watching ambiguous visual stimuli.

Transitions between wakefulness and anesthesia are accompanied by profound changes in brain functioning. A key challenge is thus to disentangle neuronal mechanisms specific to loss and recovery of consciousness, from more general effects that are not directly related to the capacity for conscious experience. Measures of neuronal diversity have been recently proposed to constitute a robust correlate of the global states of consciousness. In the present study we investigated whether EEG signal diversity is indeed related to behavioral responsiveness during propofol sedation, or rather to the general drug-related effects. To this end, we reanalyzed data collected from 20 subjects sedated with propofol. Based on the responsiveness to auditory stimuli all subjects were subdivided into two subgroups -responsive (n = 13), who remains awake throughout the experiment, and drowsy (n = 7), who becomes unresponsive during moderate sedation. Resting state EEG recorded during wakefulness and sedation was characterized by the Mean Information Gain (MIG) and Fluctuation complexity (FC) -information-theory measures estimating signal diversity or complexity, respectively. The main finding is that the drowsy group exhibited a decrease in diversity during sedation but, unexpectedly, the responsive group exhibited a robust increase in diversity (ANOVA group x state interaction: F(3) = 7.81, p < 0.001; BF 10 > 197). However, signal complexity neither differentiated the subgroups, nor decreased reliably during sedation (t-test wake vs. moderate sedation: t(19) = 2.57, p = 0.092; BF 10 = 3.08). Further, we show that a change in signal diversity is negatively correlated with a delta power change (r = -0.62, p = 0.002), and positively correlated with a beta power change (r = 0.84, p < 0.001). Finally, we show that MIG behaves in a qualitatively similar manner to Lempel-Ziv -another diversity measures used in several recent studies.Overall, we revealed that propofol sedation is initially related to an increase in EEG signal diversity, and that only upon loss of responsiveness EEG diversity decreases. The qualitatively different pattern of changes in the responsive and drowsy groups makes EEG diversity a robust indirect index of responsiveness and, presumably, consciousness.

Background Accumulating evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the mental health of individuals. However, the susceptibility of individuals to be impacted by the pandemic is variable, suggesting potential influences of specific factors related to participants’ demographics, attitudes, and practices. Objective We aimed to identify the factors associated with psychological symptoms related to the effects of the first wave of the pandemic in a multicountry cohort of internet users. Methods This study anonymously screened 13,332 internet users worldwide for acute psychological symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic from March 29 to April 14, 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic amidst strict lockdown conditions. A total of 12,817 responses were considered valid. Moreover, 1077 participants from Europe were screened a second time from May 15 to May 30, 2020, to ascertain the presence of psychological effects after the ease down of restrictions. Results Female gender, pre-existing psychiatric conditions, and prior exposure to trauma were identified as notable factors associated with increased psychological symptoms during the first wave of COVID-19 (P<.001). The same factors, in addition to being related to someone who died due to COVID-19 and using social media more than usual, were associated with persistence of psychological disturbances in the limited second assessment of European participants after the restrictions had relatively eased (P<.001). Optimism, ability to share concerns with family and friends like usual, positive prediction about COVID-19, and daily exercise were related to fewer psychological symptoms in both assessments (P<.001). Conclusions This study highlights the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at the worldwide level on the mental health of internet users and elucidates prominent associations with their demographics, history of psychiatric disease risk factors, household conditions, certain personality traits, and attitudes toward COVID-19.