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Das vorliegende Arbeitspapier untersucht Ungleichheit aus verschiedenen interdisziplinären Perspektiven auf Ursachen und Implikationen.
Inhaltsverzeichnis:
Philipp Harms, Claudia Landwehr, Mario Scharfbillig, Daniel Schunk: Ungleichheit: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Ursachen und Implikationen - Einleitung
Konstantin M. Wacker: Warum wir Ungleichheit verringern müssen, um globale Armut bis 2030 zu beenden
Joachim Klose: Heimatverlust als Indikator zunehmender Ungleichheit
Gunnar Otte: Bildungsforschung und Bildungsreformen
Sibylle Kalmbach: Bildungsgerechtigkeit und Ungleichheit im Hochschulbereich – am Beispiel von Stipendien
Claudia Landwehr und Oliver Tüscher: Ursachen ungleicher politischer Beteiligung
Michael Edinger: Gleicher Zugang zur Macht? Über soziale Schließungsprozesse in der Politik
Sascha Huber: Wählermobilisierung und Ungleichheit in Deutschland: Ein Feldexperiment zur Steigerung der Wahlbeteiligung bei der Landtagswahl in Baden-Württemberg 2016
Tonio Rieger: Der ganzheitliche Ansatz zur Bekämpfung von Langzeitarbeitslosigkeit
Molecular cause and functional impact of altered synaptic lipid signaling due to a prg‐1 gene SNP
(2015)
Loss of plasticity-related gene 1 (PRG-1), which regulates synaptic phospholipid signaling, leads to hyperexcitability via increased glutamate release altering excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance in cortical networks. A recently reported SNP in prg-1 (R345T/mutPRG-1) affects ~5 million European and US citizens in a monoallelic variant. Our studies show that this mutation leads to a loss-of-PRG-1 function at the synapse due to its inability to control lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) levels via a cellular uptake mechanism which appears to depend on proper glycosylation altered by this SNP. PRG-1(+/-) mice, which are animal correlates of human PRG-1(+/mut) carriers, showed an altered cortical network function and stress-related behavioral changes indicating altered resilience against psychiatric disorders. These could be reversed by modulation of phospholipid signaling via pharmacological inhibition of the LPA-synthesizing molecule autotaxin. In line, EEG recordings in a human population-based cohort revealed an E/I balance shift in monoallelic mutPRG-1 carriers and an impaired sensory gating, which is regarded as an endophenotype of stress-related mental disorders. Intervention into bioactive lipid signaling is thus a promising strategy to interfere with glutamate-dependent symptoms in psychiatric diseases.
Substantial evidence shows that physical activity and fitness play a protective role in the development of stress related disorders. However, the beneficial effects of fitness for resilience to modern life stress are not fully understood. Potentially protective effects may be attributed to enhanced resilience via underlying psychosocial mechanisms such as self-efficacy expectations. This study investigated whether physical activity and fitness contribute to prospectively measured resilience and examined the mediating effect of general self-efficacy. 431 initially healthy adults participated in fitness assessments as part of a longitudinal-prospective study, designed to identify mechanisms of resilience. Self-efficacy and habitual activity were assessed in parallel to cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, which were determined by a submaximal step-test, hand strength and standing long jump test. Resilience was indexed by stressor reactivity: mental health problems in relation to reported life events and daily hassles, monitored quarterly for nine months. Hierarchical linear regression models and bootstrapped mediation analyses were applied. We could show that muscular and self-perceived fitness were positively associated with stress resilience. Extending this finding, the muscular fitness–resilience relationship was partly mediated by self-efficacy expectations. In this context, self-efficacy expectations may act as one underlying psychological mechanism, with complementary benefits for the promotion of mental health. While physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness did not predict resilience prospectively, we found muscular and self-perceived fitness to be significant prognostic parameters for stress resilience. Although there is still more need to identify specific fitness parameters in light of stress resilience, our study underscores the general relevance of fitness for stress-related disorders prevention.
Resilience has been defined as the maintenance or quick recovery of mental health during and after times of adversity. How to operationalize resilience and to determine the factors and processes that lead to good long-term mental health outcomes in stressor-exposed individuals is a matter of ongoing debate and of critical importance for the advancement of the field. One of the biggest challenges for implementing an outcome-based definition of resilience in longitudinal observational study designs lies in the fact that real-life adversity is usually unpredictable and that its substantial qualitative as well as temporal variability between subjects often precludes defining circumscribed time windows of inter-individually comparable stressor exposure relative to which the maintenance or recovery of mental health can be determined. To address this pertinent issue, we propose to frequently and regularly monitor stressor exposure (E) and mental health problems (P) throughout a study's observation period [Frequent Stressor and Mental Health Monitoring (FRESHMO)-paradigm]. On this basis, a subject's deviation at any single monitoring time point from the study sample's normative E–P relationship (the regression residual) can be used to calculate that subject's current mental health reactivity to stressor exposure (“stressor reactivity,” SR). The SR score takes into account the individual extent of experienced adversity and is comparable between and within subjects. Individual SR time courses across monitoring time points reflect intra-individual temporal variability in SR, where periods of under-reactivity (negative SR score) are associated with accumulation of fewer mental health problems than is normal for the sample. If FRESHMO is accompanied by regular measurement of potential resilience factors, temporal changes in resilience factors can be used to predict SR time courses. An increase in a resilience factor measurement explaining a lagged decrease in SR can then be considered to index a process of adaptation to stressor exposure that promotes a resilient outcome (an allostatic resilience process). This design principle allows resilience research to move beyond merely determining baseline predictors of resilience outcomes, which cannot inform about how individuals successfully adjust and adapt when confronted with adversity. Hence, FRESHMO plus regular resilience factor monitoring incorporates a dynamic-systems perspective into resilience research.
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting measures can be regarded as a global stressor. Cross-sectional studies showed rather negative impacts on people’s mental health, while longitudinal studies considering pre-lockdown data are still scarce. The present study investigated the impact of COVID-19 related lockdown measures in a longitudinal German sample, assessed since 2017. During lockdown, 523 participants completed additional weekly online questionnaires on e.g., mental health, COVID-19-related and general stressor exposure. Predictors for and distinct trajectories of mental health outcomes were determined, using multilevel models and latent growth mixture models, respectively. Positive pandemic appraisal, social support, and adaptive cognitive emotion regulation were positively, whereas perceived stress, daily hassles, and feeling lonely negatively related to mental health outcomes in the entire sample. Three subgroups (“recovered,” 9.0%; “resilient,” 82.6%; “delayed dysfunction,” 8.4%) with different mental health responses to initial lockdown measures were identified. Subgroups differed in perceived stress and COVID-19-specific positive appraisal. Although most participants remained mentally healthy, as observed in the resilient group, we also observed inter-individual differences. Participants’ psychological state deteriorated over time in the delayed dysfunction group, putting them at risk for mental disorder development. Consequently, health services should especially identify and allocate resources to vulnerable individuals.
Human behaviour is inextricably linked to the interaction of emotion and cognition. For decades, emotion and cognition were perceived as separable processes, yet with mutual interactions. Recently, this differen-tiation has been challenged by more integrative approaches, but without addressing the exact neurophysiological basis of their interaction. Here, we aimed to uncover neurophysiological mechanisms of emotion-cognition interaction. We used an emotional Flanker task paired with EEG/FEM beamforming in a large cohort (N=121) of healthy human participants, obtaining high temporal and fMRI-equivalent spatial resolution. Spatially, emotion and cognition processing overlapped in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), specifically in pars triangularis. Temporally, emotion and cognition processing overlapped during the transition from emotional to cognitive processing, with a stronger interaction in β-band power leading to worse behavioral performance. Despite functionally segregated subdivisions in rIFG, frequency-specific information flowed extensively within IFG and top-down to visual areas (V2, Precuneus) – explaining the behavioral interference effect. Thus, for the first time we here show the neural mechanisms of emotion-cognition interaction in space, time, frequency and information transfer with high temporal and spatial resolution, revealing a central role for β-band activity in rIFG. Our results support the idea that rIFG plays a broad role in both inhibitory control and emotional interference inhibition as it is a site of convergence in both processes. Furthermore, our results have potential clinical implications for understanding dysfunctional emotion-cognition interaction and emotional interference inhibition in psychiatric disor-ders, e.g. major depression and substance use disorder, in which patients have difficulties in regulating emotions and executing inhibitory control.
