iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone in the WASAD community! 💫❄️🎄 We wish you a peaceful season and a restful end to the year - a time to unwind, reflect, and recognize both the big and small achievements of the past year. We can't wait to see what 2026 will bring! 🎉

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

In addition, we want to thank the @lmumuenchen.bsky.social Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, the @mpi-psychiatry.bsky.social, the Gesellschaft für Angstforschung (GAF), the @stressnetworkch.bsky.social, the @gsrnet.bsky.social, and the Flagship UMZH Stress for collaborating with us! 🙏 🎉

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

As we wrap up our #WASAD2025 recap, we want to offer a big thank you to the organizing & scientific committees, speakers, moderators, and everyone who joined! Your insightful questions, presentations, and conversations brought the congress and our discussions around stress and anxiety to life ✨

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

This coupling may reflect a neural mechanism involved in autonomic stress regulation, as it is correlated to both genetic stress-related predispositions, as well as psychometric assessments of stress coping styles.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Their findings reveal a stress-specific dynamic in heart rate-insula coupling, with the posterior insula showing a stress-dependent negative association with heart rate uniquely during a task that robustly modulates cardiovascular arousal.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Congratulations to Mira Erhart, Ronja Brinkmann, and colleagues for their poster award, received for their work exploring “Posterior Insula Coupling with Individual Heart Rate during Acute Stress as a Resilience Marker”! 🫀🧠🏆

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

While a closer link of anxiety, depression and ADHD with PIU was observed one year after the first lockdown in comparison to the first wave of assessment, the association between PIU and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) remained constant. 👉 wasad2025.org/wp-content/u...

wasad2025.org

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

In their research, they explored how associations between mental health variables and problematic internet use (PIU) may have changed during the pandemic.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Congratulations to Anita Meinke and colleagues for winning one of our poster awards, with their poster “Change in the association between mental health and problematic internet use in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic”! 📱🏆

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

However, NSSI events during the sampling period were mostly triggered by real-life events. These results underscore the need for targeted interventions addressing online interactions to mitigate NSSI behaviors and improve adolescent mental health.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

In comparing adolescents with and without a history of NSSI, they showed that for adolescents who engage in NSSI, negative events on social media were more strongly associated with perceived stress, negative affect, and NSSI urges than real-life negative events.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Congratulations to @andreasgoreis.bsky.social and colleagues for winning one of three poster awards for their poster titled “Impact of Social Media on Triggering Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) in Adolescents: A Comparative Ambulatory Assessment Study”! 📱💬 🏆

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

In addition, he outlined promising future directions for the treatment of these trauma-related disorders, for example by using dynamic indicators for treatment planning to identify the optimal timing for trauma-focused interventions.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

In his keynote lecture, “Treatment of PTSD: State-of-the-Art and Beyond,” Professor Thomas Ehring @thomasehring.bsky.social, Chair of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment at LMU Munich @lmu-klips.bsky.social, offered an overview of current evidence-based interventions for PTSD and CPTSD.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

At #WASAD2025 he primarily addressed the latter with his insightful keynote on "Virtual Reality in anxiety – perspectives and limitations".

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

His main clinical and research focus is on neurobiology, psychopharmacology and psychotherapy of depression and anxiety disorders, neurostimulation, E-mental Health and Virtual Reality (VR).

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Keynote Lecture 4/5: Professor Dr. Peter Zwanzger is Medical Director of the kbo-Inn-Salzach Hospital, a teaching hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (@lmumuenchen.bsky.social).

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Swipe through the photos above for a glimpse into his exploration of the brain-heart connection! 💥🧠🫀.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

“Is there a conductor for the orchestrated stress-induced interaction between brain and heart?” This central question guided the keynote lecture delivered by Karl-Heinz Ladwig, Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine and Medical Psychology at the Technical University of Munich (@tum.de).

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

His lecture, “Decoding the impact of genetic risk factors and stress exposure on psychiatric disorders,” offered valuable insights into his research on gene–environment interactions, neuropeptide pathways, and other stress-related disease mechanisms. 🧬🧠

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

The second keynote lecture of #WASAD2025 was held by Dr. Jan Deussing, Head of the Molecular Neurogenetics research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry (@mpi-psychiatry.bsky.social) in Munich, Germany.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

In her lecture, Professor Penninx shared findings from her research on the prevalence of anxiety disorders, discussing potential reasons for their apparent increase, strategies to alleviate their burden, and the functional component of stress.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

“Complete freedom from stress is death.” – Hans Selye Highlight of the Opening Ceremony was the Hans Selye Lecture, delivered by Brenda Penninx, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, on the topic “Towards Reducing the Public Health Burden of Anxiety Disorders.”

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

📊 The scientific program included: 🔹 5 keynote lectures 🔸 15 plenary sessions... 🔹 ...with a total of 61 presentations 🔸 50 on-site posters 🔹 and 5 ePosters!!

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

First off: #WASAD2025 in numbers! 📊 👉 In total, 227 researchers, clinicians, and psychologists from 19 countries attended the Congress. The top countries of origin were: 🇩🇪 Germany 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇦🇹 Austria …followed closely, however, by 🇨🇿 the Czech Republic.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Thank you all for sharing your impressions of #WASAD2025 during and after the Congress! It was wonderful to see the event reflected through your words and photos. In the next few posts, we’ll take a moment to look back and recap some highlights 🔆

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

🔔 Part 7 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: @markusforamitti.bsky.social presented his poster: “Modulating Stress through Sound: The Effects of Historical Metallic Idiophones on Human Responses.”

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

🎨 Part 6 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: Dr. Anna Fekete presented her poster “Exploring the Impact of Art on Pain and Stress: Multimodal Art and Music Enhance Pain Tolerance, but Do Not Influence Autonomic and Endocrine Markers.”

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

🫠Part 5 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: @markusforamitti.bsky.social presented his talk “Regulating Collective Emotion Through Music: Diachronic Analysis of Stress, Sentiment, and Complexity in Lyrics (1973–2023)” in the Everyday life stress session.🙃

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

⏳Part 4 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: @celinebencker.bsky.social presented her talk “Trajectories of everyday life stress across the menstrual cycle” in the Everyday life stress session.

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

🧬 Part 3 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: Dr. Nida Ali presented her talk “Stress biomarkers in saliva” in the Biomarkers and novel therapeutics for stress-related and anxiety disorders session.

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Oswald Kothgassner @odkothgassner.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

We had a great time in Munich at #WASAD2025! Inspiring talks and discussions throughout the conference. And not to forget: congratulations to @andreasgoreis.bsky.social sgoreis.bsky.social for winning the Best Poster Award for the EMA findings of the FWF-funded project TORN 🥳

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Oswald Kothgassner @odkothgassner.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

And we were excited to share our latest results: Fantastic short poster talks on their PhD projects by Sofia Oehlke, Max Hirzer, and ÖAW scholar Bettina Pfeffer! 🤩

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

🎶 Part 2 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: Dr. Anna Fekete presented her talk: “The biopsychological mediation model of music on health – Implications for treatment of stress-related disorders” in the Optimized therapy for stress-related disorders session.

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

🎉 It’s a wrap! Three amazing days of fascinating research, inspiring presentations, and lively coffee-break discussions are behind us! A huge thank you to everyone who joined, showcased their work, and contributed to making #WASAD2025 such a memorable event. Until next time! 💙🧡💙

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

🔬Part 1 in our #WASAD2025, @wasadorg.bsky.social, series: Nadja Plumbaum presented her talk “A digital stress management intervention tool – EPIGRAM” in the Digital interventions session.

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

🌎🧬The 5th International World Association for Stress Related and Anxiety Disorders Congress, "Uncertainty in Times of Change: A Lifecourse Approach to Stress and Anxiety", was held in Munich and opened by Urs Nater. We will share our highlights in our upcoming series 🎉 @wasadorg.bsky.social

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markusforamitti.bsky.social @markusforamitti.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Great experience presenting at the WASAD Congress! I discussed how Natural Language Processing can advance stress research and how music functions as a cognitive artifact. @wasadorg.bsky.social Grateful to collaborate with @mauriciojdmartins.bsky.social @clauslamm.bsky.social & Urs Nater #WASAD

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Madeleine Kördel @mkoerdel.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

It was great to present my research at #WASAD2025 in Munich and contribute to the discussions on stress, hormones, and mental health!

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Celine Bencker @celinebencker.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Excited for my talk at #WASAD2025! I’ll share some initial findings from my ongoing study, focusing on the trajectories of everyday life stress across the menstrual cycle and how they relate to premenstrual symptoms ✨ I’ll present at 10:15 at lecture hall 2. Come by! :)

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Neurotorium @neurotorium.org · 23/10/2025

We’re live at #WASAD2025 in Munich! Come visit the Neurotorium booth to explore our brand-new Anxiety Disorders theme — free, expert-developed materials for clinicians, researchers & students. 🔗 neurotorium.org/anxiety

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

P.S.: Can't attend in person but still want to explore some of the posters? You can already browse the ePosters on our website: 👉 wasad2025.org/poster/

wasad2025.org

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

It's almost time... #WASAD2025 starts tomorrow! 🎉 We'd love to see all your contributions here on Bluesky. So feel free to use the hashtag #WASAD2025 or tag us @wasadorg.bsky.social if you're posting about the Congress! We're excited to follow along and repost!

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StressLab UniVienna @stresslabvienna.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

🌍 We are excited for the 5th International World Association for Stress Related and Anxiety Disorders (WASAD) Congress in Munich! 🎉 @wasadorg.bsky.social Check out our oral presentations below and don’t miss us at the poster session! 📊 @celinebencker.bsky.social @markusforamitti.bsky.social

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Neurotorium @neurotorium.org · 16/10/2025

We're excited to be attending the WASAD Congress next week in Munich, where we'll be showcasing our new Anxiety Disorders theme. Visit our booth to learn more about Neurotorium’s free expert-developed educational material! neurotorium.org/outreach/activities

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Last but definitely not least, Andreas Schwerdtfeger asks the question: "Does the heart know best?" In his talk, he evaluates the effectiveness of just in time interventions triggered by heart rate variability to relieve stress 🫀📲

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Then, @markusforamitti.bsky.social will follow up with a fascinating exploration of how music helps regulate collective emotion in his talk: "Regulating Collective Emotion Through Music: Diachronic Analysis of Stress, Sentiment, and Complexity in Lyrics (1973–2023)" 📝🎶

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Up next, Lydia Kogler will share insights on how social stress, the cortisol awakening response, and sex differences influence hippocampal and amygdala volume. ⏰🧠

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Celine Bencker @celinebencker.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Looking forward to contributing to this plenary session at #WASAD2025 in Munich on October 25 and to inspiring discussions!

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WASAD @wasadorg.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

New in the #WASAD2025 scientific program! 📅 💼 „Everyday Life Stress“ @celinebencker.bsky.social will start off this plenary, chaired by Urs Nater and Andreas Schwerdtfeger with her engaging presentation on the trajectories of everyday life stress across the menstrual cycle ♀️👩

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