Erik Rimestad Frogner

• Pfabigan, Daniela Melitta; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Asgari, Fatemeh & Sailer, Uta (2026). Appreciation of Social Experiences and Solitude in Everyday Life: The SOcial Experiences' daiLy Occurrence Scale (SOLO). Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. ISSN 0036-5564. doi: 10.1111/sjop.70146. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  While social interactions and actively chosen solitude both contribute to well‐being, existing measures focus solely on one dimension. We developed the SOcial experiences' daiLy Occurrence (SOLO) scale—a brief end‐of‐day diary measure capturing enjoyment of social interactions (including brief encounters with “weak ties”) and solitude experiences. Two scale development and validation studies were conducted: single‐day ( N  = 203) and 14‐day ( N  = 75) assessments. The final SOLO consists of 13 items forming two scales, the Social Interaction subscale and the Solitude subscale. Both scales demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and meaningful relationships with well‐being measures. The scales were independent, supporting the conceptualization of social enjoyment and solitude preference as distinct dimensions. The SOLO is therefore presented as two distinct scales. A composite score can be calculated if required, although subscale‐level analyses are recommended given the empirical independence of the two dimensions. The SOLO's brief format offers a practical compromise between ecological momentary assessment and retrospective measures, enabling investigation of the distinct roles of social engagement and solitude in everyday life.

• Pedersen, Mads Lund; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Westlye, Lars Tjelta & Moberget, Torgeir (2026). Neural decision dynamics underlying reinforcement learning and working memory. iScience. 29(5). doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115471. Full text in Research Archive
• Frogner, Erik R.; Dahl, Andreas; Kjelkenes, Rikka; Moberget, Torgeir; Collins, Anne G.E. & Westlye, Lars Tjelta [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2025). Linking reinforcement learning, working memory, and choice dynamics to age and symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescence. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. ISSN 1878-9293. 76. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2025.101626. Full text in Research Archive
• Pfabigan, Daniela M; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Asgari, Fatemeh & Sailer, Uta (2025). Appreciation of social experiences and solitude in everyday life: the SOcial experiences’ daiLy Occurrence scale (SOLO). PsyArXiv. doi: 10.31234/osf.io/6psar_v2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  While social interactions and actively chosen solitude both contribute to well-being, existing measures focus solely on one dimension. We developed the Social experiences' daiLy Occurrence (SOLO) scale—a brief end-of-day diary measure capturing enjoyment of social interactions (including brief encounters with "weak ties") and solitude experiences. Two validation studies were conducted: single-day (N=203) and 14-day (N=75) assessments. The final SOLO consists of 13 items forming two scales: "Being with others" and "Being alone". Both scales demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and meaningful relationships with well-being measures. The scales were independent, supporting conceptualization of social enjoyment and solitude preference as distinct dimensions. The SOLO's brief format offers a practical compromise between ecological momentary assessment and retrospective measures.

• Voldsbekk, Irene; Kjelkenes, Rikka; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Westlye, Lars Tjelta & Alnæs, Dag (2024). Testing the sensitivity of diagnosis-derived patterns in functional brain networks to symptom burden in a Norwegian youth sample. Human Brain Mapping. ISSN 1065-9471. 45(3), p. e26631–e26631. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26631. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Aberrant brain network development represents a putative aetiological component in mental disorders, which typically emerge during childhood and adolescence. Previous studies have identified resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) patterns reflecting psychopathology, but the generalisability to other samples and politico-cultural contexts has not been established. We investigated whether a previously identified cross-diagnostic case–control and autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-specific pattern of RSFC (discovery sample; aged 5–21 from New York City, USA; n = 1666) could be validated in a Norwegian convenience-based youth sample (validation sample; aged 9–25 from Oslo, Norway; n = 531). As a test of generalisability, we investigated if these diagnosis-derived RSFC patterns were sensitive to levels of symptom burden in both samples, based on an independent measure of symptom burden. Both the cross-diagnostic and ASD-specific RSFC pattern were validated across samples. Connectivity patterns were significantly associated with thematically appropriate symptom dimensions in the discovery sample. In the validation sample, the ASD-specific RSFC pattern showed a weak, inverse relationship with symptoms of conduct problems, hyperactivity and prosociality, while the cross-diagnostic pattern was not significantly linked to symptoms. Diagnosis-derived connectivity patterns in a developmental clinical US sample were validated in a convenience sample of Norwegian youth, however, they were not associated with mental health symptoms.

• Pfabigan, Daniela M.; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Schéle, Erik; Thorsby, Per Medbøe; Skålhegg, Bjørn Steen & Dickson, Suzanne L. [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2023). Ghrelin is related to lower brain reward activation during touch. Psychophysiology. ISSN 0048-5772. 61(2). doi: 10.1111/psyp.14443. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The gut hormone ghrelin drives food motivation and increases food intake, but it is also involved in the anticipation of and response to rewards other than food. This pre-registered study investigated how naturally varying ghrelin concentrations affect the processing of touch as a social reward in humans. Sixty-seven volunteers received slow caressing touch (so-called CT-targeted touch) as a social reward and control touch on their shins during 3T functional imaging on two test days. On one occasion, participants were fasted, and on another, they received a meal. On each occasion, plasma ghrelin was measured at three time points. All touch was rated as more pleasant after the meal, but there was no association between ghrelin concentrations and pleasantness. CT-targeted touch was rated as the most pleasant and activated somatosensory and reward networks (whole brain). A region-of-interest in the right medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) showed lower activation during all touches, the higher the ghrelin concentrations were. During CT-targeted touch, a larger satiety response (ghrelin decrease after the meal) was associated with higher mOFC activation, and this mOFC activation was associated with higher experienced pleasantness. Overall, higher ghrelin concentrations appear to be related to a lower reward value for touch. Ghrelin may reduce the value of social stimuli, such as touch, to promote food search and intake in a state of low energy. This suggests that the role of ghrelin goes beyond assigning value to food reward.

• Pfabigan, Daniela Melitta; Frogner, Erik Rimestad; Erik, Schéle; Thorsby, Per Medbøe; Skålhegg, Bjørn Steen & Dickson, Suzanne L. [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2022). The “hunger” hormone ghrelin is associated with neural activation during touch, but not its affective experience. BioRxiv. ISSN 0362-4331. doi: 10.1101/2022.05.10.491384. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA