R.A. Otte
Tilburg University
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Featured researches published by R.A. Otte.
PLOS ONE | 2013
Marijke A. K. A Braeken; Andrew H. Kemp; Tim Outhred; R.A. Otte; Geert Monsieur; Alexander Jones; Bea Van den Bergh
Objective Active anxiety disorders have lasting detrimental effects on pregnant mothers and their offspring but it is unknown if historical, non-active, maternal anxiety disorders have similar effects. Anxiety-related conditions, such as reduced autonomic cardiac control, indicated by reduced heart rate variability (HRV) could persist despite disorder resolution, with long-term health implications for mothers and children. The objective in this study is to test the hypotheses that pregnant mothers with a history of, but not current anxiety and their children have low HRV, predicting anxiety-like offspring temperaments. Methods The participants in this case-control study consist of 56 women during their first trimester and their offspring (15 male, 29 female). Women had a history of an anxiety disorder (n=22) or no psychopathology (n=34) determined using the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview. The main outcome measures were indices of autonomic cardiac control including root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and high frequency (HF) variability. Children’s fearfulness was also assessed using the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB)-Locomotor Version. Results HRV was lower in women and children in the past anxiety group compared to controls. HRV measures for mothers and children were positively correlated in the anxiety group only. In all children, low HRV measures at 2-4 months were associated with a higher chance of fearful behavior at 9-10 months. Conclusions Pregnant women with previous but not current anxiety and their children have low HRV. Children with low HRV tend to show more fearfulness. These findings have implications for identifying children at risk of anxiety disorders and point to possible underlying mechanisms of child psychopathology.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience | 2015
Marion I. van den Heuvel; Franc C. L. Donkers; István Winkler; R.A. Otte; Bea Van den Bergh
Maternal anxiety during pregnancy has been consistently shown to negatively affect offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes. However, little is known about the impact of positive maternal traits/states during pregnancy on the offspring. The present study was aimed at investigating the effects of the mothers mindfulness and anxiety during pregnancy on the infants neurocognitive functioning at 9 months of age. Mothers reported mindfulness using the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory and anxiety using the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90) at ± 20.7 weeks of gestation. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were measured from 79 infants in an auditory oddball paradigm designed to measure auditory attention-a key aspect of early neurocognitive functioning. For the ERP responses elicited by standard sounds, higher maternal mindfulness was associated with lower N250 amplitudes (P < 0.01, η(2) = 0.097), whereas higher maternal anxiety was associated with higher N250 amplitudes (P < 0.05, η(2) = 0.057). Maternal mindfulness was also positively associated with the P150 amplitudes (P < 0.01, η(2) = 0.130). These results suggest that infants prenatally exposed to higher levels of maternal mindfulness devote fewer attentional resources to frequently occurring irrelevant sounds. The results show that positive traits and experiences of the mother during pregnancy may also affect the unborn child. Emphasizing the beneficial effects of a positive psychological state during pregnancy may promote healthy behavior in pregnant women.
Brain and Cognition | 2015
R.A. Otte; Franc C. L. Donkers; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; B.R.H. Van den Bergh
The ability to read emotional expressions from human face and voice is an important skill in our day-to-day interactions with others. How this ability develops may be influenced by atypical experiences early in life. Here, we investigated multimodal processing of fearful and happy face/voice pairs in 9-month-olds prenatally exposed to maternal anxiety, using event-related potentials (ERPs). Infants were presented with emotional vocalisations (happy/fearful) preceded by emotional facial expressions (happy/fearful). The results revealed larger P350 amplitudes in response to fearful vocalisations when infants had been exposed to higher levels of anxiety, regardless of the type of visual prime, which may indicate increased attention to fearful vocalisations. A trend for a positive association between P150 amplitudes and maternal anxiety scores during pregnancy may suggest these infants are more easily aroused by and extract features more thoroughly from fearful vocalisations as well. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to maternal anxiety is related to more extensive processing of fear-related stimuli.
Psychophysiology | 2017
M.A.K.A. Braeken; Alexander Jones; R.A. Otte; Ivan Nyklíček; Bea Van den Bergh
Mindfulness is known to decrease psychological distress. Possible benefits in pregnancy have rarely been explored. Our aim was to examine the prospective association of mindfulness with autonomic nervous system function during pregnancy and with later infant social-emotional development. Pregnant women (N = 156) completed self-report mindfulness and emotional distress questionnaires, and had their autonomic function assessed in their first and third trimesters, including heart rate (HR), indices of heart rate variability (HRV), preejection period (PEP), and systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). The social-emotional development of 109 infants was assessed at 4 months of age. More mindful pregnant women had less prenatal and postnatal emotional distress (p < .001) and higher cardiac parasympathetic activity: root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD: p = .03) and high-frequency (HF) HRV (p = .02). Between the first and third trimesters, womens overall HR increased (p < .001), and HRV (RMSSD, HF HRV, and low-frequency (LF) HRV: p < .001) and PEP decreased (p < .001). In more mindful mothers, parasympathetic activity decreased less (RMSSD: p = .01; HF HRV: p = .03) and sympathetic activity (inversely related to PEP) increased less (PEP: p = .02) between trimesters. Their offspring displayed less negative social-emotional behavior (p = .03) compared to offspring of less mindful mothers. Mindfulness in pregnancy was associated with ANS changes likely to be adaptive and with better social-emotional offspring development. Interventions to increase mindfulness during pregnancy might improve maternal and offspring health, but randomized trials are needed to demonstrate this.
Brain and Cognition | 2015
R.A. Otte; Franc C. L. Donkers; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; B.R.H. Van den Bergh
Making sense of emotions manifesting in human voice is an important social skill which is influenced by emotions in other modalities, such as that of the corresponding face. Although processing emotional information from voices and faces simultaneously has been studied in adults, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying the development of this ability in infancy. Here we investigated multimodal processing of fearful and happy face/voice pairs using event-related potential (ERP) measures in a group of 84 9-month-olds. Infants were presented with emotional vocalisations (fearful/happy) preceded by the same or a different facial expression (fearful/happy). The ERP data revealed that the processing of emotional information appearing in human voice was modulated by the emotional expression appearing on the corresponding face: Infants responded with larger auditory ERPs after fearful compared to happy facial primes. This finding suggests that infants dedicate more processing capacities to potentially threatening than to non-threatening stimuli.
Biological Psychology | 2015
M.A.K.A. Braeken; Alex Jones; R.A. Otte; Devy Widjaja; S. Van Huffel; G.J.Y.J. Monsieur; C.M. van Oirschot; B.R.H. Van den Bergh
Altered stress responsiveness is a risk factor for mental and physical illness. In non-pregnant populations, it is well-known that anxiety can alter the physiological regulation of stress reactivity. Characterization of corresponding risks for pregnant women and their offspring requires greater understanding of how stress reactivity and recovery are influenced by pregnancy and womens anxiety feelings. In the current study, women were presented repeatedly with mental arithmetic stress tasks in the first and third pregnancy trimester and reported their trait anxiety using the state trait anxiety inventory. Cardiovascular stress reactivity in late pregnancy was lower than reactivity in the first pregnancy trimester (heart rate (HR): t(197)=4.98, p<.001; high frequency heart rate variability (HF HRV): t(196)=-2.09, p=.04). Less attenuation of stress reactivity occurred in more anxious women (HR: b=0.15, SE=0.06, p=.008; HF HRV: b=-10.97, SE=4.79, p=.02). The study design did not allow the influence of habituation to repeated stress task exposure to be assessed separately from the influence of pregnancy progression. Although this is a limitation, the clear differences between anxious and non-anxious pregnant women are important, regardless of the extent to which differing habituation between the groups is responsible. Less dampened stress reactivity through pregnancy may pose long-term risks for anxious women and their offspring. Follow-up studies are required to determine these risks.
International Journal of Psychophysiology | 2015
Marion I. van den Heuvel; R.A. Otte; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; István Winkler; Elena Kushnerenko; Bea Van den Bergh
Infant auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) show a series of marked changes during the first year of life. These AERP changes indicate important advances in early development. The current study examined AERP differences between 2- and 4-month-old infants. An auditory oddball paradigm was delivered to infants with a frequent repetitive tone and three rare auditory events. The three rare events included a shorter than the regular inter-stimulus interval (ISI-deviant), white noise segments, and environmental sounds. The results suggest that the N250 infantile AERP component emerges during this period in response to white noise but not to environmental sounds, possibly indicating a developmental step towards separating acoustic deviance from contextual novelty. The scalp distribution of the AERP response to both the white noise and the environmental sounds shifted towards frontal areas and AERP peak latencies were overall lower in infants at 4 than at 2 months of age. These observations indicate improvements in the speed of sound processing and maturation of the frontal attentional network in infants during this period.
Biological Psychology | 2013
R.A. Otte; István Winkler; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; Jeroen J. Stekelenburg; O. van der Stelt; B.R.H. Van den Bergh
computing in cardiology conference | 2010
Devy Widjaja; Joachim Taelman; Steven Vandeput; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; R.A. Otte; Bea Van den Bergh; Sabine Van Huffel
computing in cardiology conference | 2010
Devy Widjaja; Steven Vandeput; Joachim Taelman; Marijke A. K. A Braeken; R.A. Otte; Bea Van den Bergh; Sabine Van Huffel