The outbreak of COVID-19 might produce dramatic psychological effects on individuals’ lives. In this study, we aimed to explore the elements that may reduce the negative effects on mental health of the quarantine period imposed by most governments during this worldwide crisis. We conducted an online survey to evaluate demographic, lifestyle and mental health variables in a sample of 1280 Portuguese individuals (79.8% females) with an average age of 37 years. We observed that factors related to living conditions, maintaining work either online or in the workplace, frequency of exercise and absence of previous psychological or physic disorders are protective features of psychological well-being (anxiety, depression, stress and obsessive-compulsive symptoms). Finally, the individuals previously receiving psychotherapeutic support exhibited better psychological indicators if they did not interrupt the process as a consequence of the outbreak. Our results indicate that the practice of physical exercise, reduced consumption of COVID-19 information and the implementation of remote mental healthcare measures might prevent larger impacts on mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Coffee is the most widely consumed source of caffeine worldwide, partly due to the psychoactive effects of this methylxanthine. Interestingly, the effects of its chronic consumption on the brain’s intrinsic functional networks are still largely unknown. This study provides the first extended characterization of the effects of chronic coffee consumption on human brain networks. Subjects were recruited and divided into two groups: habitual coffee drinkers (CD) and non-coffee drinkers (NCD). Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was acquired in these volunteers who were also assessed regarding stress, anxiety, and depression scores. In the neuroimaging evaluation, the CD group showed decreased functional connectivity in the somatosensory and limbic networks during resting state as assessed with independent component analysis. The CD group also showed decreased functional connectivity in a network comprising subcortical and posterior brain regions associated with somatosensory, motor, and emotional processing as assessed with network-based statistics; moreover, CD displayed longer lifetime of a functional network involving subcortical regions, the visual network and the cerebellum. Importantly, all these differences were dependent on the frequency of caffeine consumption, and were reproduced after NCD drank coffee. CD showed higher stress levels than NCD, and although no other group effects were observed in this psychological assessment, increased frequency of caffeine consumption was also associated with increased anxiety in males. In conclusion, higher consumption of coffee and caffeinated products has an impact in brain functional connectivity at rest with implications in emotionality, alertness, and readiness to action.

Emotion-regulation strategies are understood to influence food intake. This study examined the neurophysiological underpinnings of negative emotion processing and emotion regulation in individuals with excess weight compared to normal-weight controls. Fifteen participants with excess-weight (body mass index >25) and sixteen normal-weight controls (body mass index 18–25) performed an emotion-regulation task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were exposed to 24 negative affective or neutral pictures that they were instructed to Observe (neutral pictures), Maintain (sustain the emotion elicited by negative pictures) or Regulate (down-regulate the emotion provoked by negative pictures through previously trained reappraisal techniques). When instructed to regulate negative emotions by means of cognitive reappraisal, participants with excess weight displayed persistently heightened activation in the right anterior insula. Decreased responsivity was also found in right anterior insula, the orbitofrontal cortex and cerebellum during negative emotion experience in participants with excess weight. Psycho-physiological interaction analyses showed that excess-weight participants had decreased negative functional coupling between the right anterior insula and the right dlPFC, and the bilateral dmPFC during cognitive reappraisal. Our findings support contentions that excess weight is linked to an abnormal pattern of neural activation and connectivity during the experience and regulation of negative emotions, with the insula playing a key role in these alterations. We posit that ineffective regulation of emotional states contributes to the acquisition and preservation of excess weight.