Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) associated with age and vascular risk factors has a high prevalence and social significance. Psychoemotional changes are an early manifestation of CSVD that require methods for their correction. Objective: to evaluate and compare the efficacy of biofeedback (BF) at infra-low frequencies and alpha waves frequencies in correcting emotional changes in patients with early CSVD. Material and methods. The study included 71 patients (85% women; mean age 52.8±6.3 years) with early CSVD and 21 healthy volunteers (71% women; mean age 53.2±4.8 years). Patients were randomized into three groups using the envelope method with double-blind placebo control: BF-neurotraining at infra-low frequencies (n=25), alpha waves (n=22) and imitation of BF based on electroencephalography parameters (placebo; n=24). Fifteen 30-minute individual sessions were conducted 2–5 times per week. Clinical symptoms, brain MRI data and psychoemotional status were assessed in all participants before and immediately after the BF course and 6–8 weeks later. Results. Patients with early-stage CSVD were characterized by an medium level of situational and a high level of personal anxiety, mild symptoms of depression and an medium level of alexithymia. Infra-low frequencies and alpha waves BF-neurotrainings were comparable in terms of their efficacy in reducing personal anxiety. Alpha waves training also showed an effect in reducing situational anxiety in the long term. Infralow frequencies training also reduced the level of depression. Placebo training had no effect on the parameters studied. Conclusion. In patients with early CSVD, BF-neurotraining at infra-low frequencies and alpha waves may be one of the methods for correcting the emotional changes associated with CSVD.

Impairments to nociception are currently regarded as the pathogenetic mechanism of psychosomatic disorders and as a potential therapeutic target. An aim of the present work was to investigate the functional cerebral grounds linking the perception of internal sensations and emotional intelligence. The interoceptive paradigm for detection of the heartbeat was modified, adapted to Russian, and used in conditions of functional MRI in middle-aged and elderly people without neurological or mental illness. All subjects carried out the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso emotional intelligence test. The level of emotional intelligence and the accuracy of heart rhythm detection were linked with activation of the right anterior insular cortex. This mediator role of the right anterior insular cortex in the interaction between interoception and emotional processing indicates that it can be regarded as a neural correlate of this interaction in developing approaches to the prophylaxis and treatment of psychosomatic disorders.

Aberrant interoceptive processing is increasingly recognized as a mechanism of psychosomatic disorders and as a target for therapeutic interventions. The current study was aimed at investigation of the functional neural links between the interoception and emotional intelligence. Interoceptive heartbeat detection task was modified, adopted into Russian and used during functional magnetic resonance tomography in older adults without neurological and psychiatric diseases and with no abnormalities detected by the structural MRI. The study participants also underwent the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. We found that both emotional intelligence and interoceptive accuracy are related to the task-based activation of the right anterior insula. The revealed mediatory role of the right insula in the link between the interoceptive and emotional processing may influence the development of interdisciplinary approaches to prophylaxis and treatment of the psychosomatic conditions.

Current research is devoted to problem of risky behavior among adolescents. Explanation and prediction of risky behavior are indispensable conditions for development of effective prophylactic programmes for healthy lifestyle. Research aims to study conflict of values and motivations as a disposition towards risky behavior demonstration during adolescence. Research proposes a Model of Health Value to explain health behavior among healthy adolescents and adolescents suffering from conduct disorders (demonstrating risky behaviors). Model includes investigation of cognitive and emotional attitudes towards health, health motivation and behavior. 32 male Russian adolescents suffering from conduct disorders and 32 healthy male adolescents (aged 15–17 years) participated in research. Psychodiagnostic methods were used to analyse cognitive attitude towards health (Health Locus of Control, Questionnaire of factors influencing health, Questionnaire of motivation choice) as well as projective methods (Picture Frustration Test, Unfinished sentences). Clinical interview was conducted with all adolescents, suffering from conduct disorders. Among healthy adolescents Health Value is one of the most important values, while for adolescents suffering from conduct disorders it occupies lower positions in hierarchy of values (because of values of pleasures, achievements and self-affirmation). Adolescents suffering from conduct disorders declare importance of health and at the same time demonstrate positive emotional attitude towards risky behavior, passivity in frustration situations and less differentiated cognitive attitudes towards health. Conflict of values is aggravated among adolescents with conduct disorders because of exaggerated importance of values of self-affirmation. This conflict plays an important role in risky behavior demonstration.

The paper addresses the issue of applying Galperin's theory to the analysis of psychosomatic development in children. From this perspective, psychosomatic ontogenesis can be seen as a process of one's acquisition of body functions and actions that go through certain developmental and learning stages; as a result, a fully developed body phenomenon achieves some characteristics similar to those of higher mental function. Social regulation of bodily manifestations that controls the process of their acquisition is reviewed as one of the key mechanisms of incorporating various aspects of body functioning into the social context and their gradual transformation under its influence. The development of one's abilities to control his/her body functions, the categorical structure of inner senses, one's image of his/her appearance, images of health and illness, of symptomatic behaviour etc. - all are explored in the paper from the perspective of the concept of stage-by-stage formation of mental actions. The paper also examines normal and abnormal patterns of psychosomatic development in relation to interiorization principles common for both of them.