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Background: Self-harm is highly prevalent in adolescence, often serving an emotion regulation function. Social stressors such as bullying are associated with self-harm. The neurobiological background of the relationship between social stressors and self-harm needs to be further understood to inform prevention and therapy. Methods: Participants were members of an epidemiological cohort study. 130 female participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) at age 19. Of them, 21 reported a history of self-harm as assessed by the Youth Self Report. Psychiatric diagnoses were recorded. Results: Participants with a history of self-harm showed significantly lower blood cortisol levels throughout the TSST. Early psychosocial adversity did not significantly differ between groups with and without self-harm, with self-harming participants reporting more childhood adversities. Conclusion: These results add to the limited field of studies showing an altered HPA axis activity in females with self-harm. Future studies need to address the causal mechanisms behind this association.
Background: Depressed mood is prevalent during pregnancy, with accumulating evidence suggesting an impact on developmental outcome in the offspring. However, the long-term effects of prenatal maternal depression regarding internalizing psychopathology in the offspring are as yet unclear. Results: In n=85 young adults exposed to prenatal maternal depressed mood, no significantly higher risk for a diagnosis of depressive disorder was observed. However, they reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms. This association was especially pronounced when prenatal maternal depressed mood was present during the first trimester of pregnancy and when maternal mood was depressed pre- as well as postnatally. At an uncorrected level only, prenatal maternal depressed mood was associated with decreased amygdala volume. Limitations: Prenatal maternal depressed mood was not assessed during pregnancy, but shortly after childbirth. No diagnoses of maternal clinical depression during pregnancy were available. Conclusions: Self-reported depressive symptoms do not imply increased, but rather decreased symptom levels in young adults who were exposed to prenatal maternal depressed mood. A long-term perspective may be important when considering consequences of prenatal risk factors.
The goal of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression and its risk factors in patients with late-onset rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treated in German primary care practices. Longitudinal data from general practices (n=1072) throughout Germany were analyzed. Individuals initially diagnosed with RA (2009-2013) were identified, and 7301 patients were included and matched (1:1) to 7301 controls. The primary outcome measure was the initial diagnosis of depression within 5 years after the index date in patients with and without RA. Cox proportional hazards models were used to adjust for confounders. The mean age was 72.2 years (SD: 7.6 years). A total of 34.9 % of patients were men. Depression diagnoses were present in 22.0 % of the RA group and 14.3 % of the control group after a 5-year follow-up period (p < 0.001). In the multivariate regression model, RA was a strong risk factor for the development of depression (HR: 1.55, p < 0.001). There was significant interaction of RA and diagnosed inflammatory polyarthropathies (IP) (RA*IP interaction: p < 0.001). Furthermore, dementia, cancer, osteoporosis, hypertension, and diabetes were associated with a higher risk of developing depression (p values < 0.001). The risk of depression is significantly higher in patients with late-onset RA than in patients without RA for subjects treated in primary care practices in Germany. RA patients should be screened routinely for depression in order to ensure improved treatment and management.
Physical size modulates the efficiency of digit comparison, depending on whether the relation of numerical magnitude and physical size is congruent or incongruent (Besner & Coltheart, Neuropsychologia, 17, 467–472, 1979), the number-size congruency effect (NSCE). In addition, Henik and Tzelgov (Memory & Cognition, 10, 389–395, 1982) first reported an NSCE for the reverse task of comparing the physical size of digits such that the numerical magnitude of digits modulated the time required to compare their physical sizes. Does the NSCE in physical comparisons simply reflect a number-mediated bias mechanism related to making decisions and selecting responses about the digit’s sizes? Alternatively, or in addition, the NSCE might indicate a true increase in the ability to discriminate small and large font sizes when these sizes are congruent with the digit’s symbolic numerical meaning, over and above response bias effects. We present a new research design that permits us to apply signal detection theory to a task that required observers to judge the physical size of digits. Our results clearly demonstrate that the NSCE cannot be reduced to mere response bias effects, and that genuine sensitivity gains for congruent number-size pairings contribute to the NSCE.
Research in cognitive neuroscience has shown that brain structures serving perceptual, emotional, and motor processes are also recruited during the understanding of language when it refers to emotion, perception, and action. However, the exact linguistic and extralinguistic conditions under which such language-induced activity in modality-specific cortex is triggered are not yet well understood. The purpose of this study is to introduce a simple experimental technique that allows for the online measure of language-induced activity in motor structures of the brain. This technique consists in the use of a grip force sensor that captures subtle grip force variations while participants listen to words and sentences. Since grip force reflects activity in motor brain structures, the continuous monitoring of force fluctuations provides a fine-grained estimation of motor activity across time. In other terms, this method allows for both localization of the source of language-induced activity to motor brain structures and high temporal resolution of the recorded data. To facilitate comparison of the data to be collected with this tool, we present two experiments that describe in detail the technical setup, the nature of the recorded data, and the analyses (including justification about the data filtering and artifact rejection) that we applied. We also discuss how the tool could be used in other domains of behavioral research.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of age and weight status on adolescents' body dissatisfaction and its change over 20 months in a gender-comparing design. The influence of body image concern on eating concern was also investigated.
Method:
In a prospective study, 675 male and female adolescents aged 12–16 were assessed using self-report questionnaires on weight, shape, muscularity, and eating concerns. Height and weight measurements were taken by trained personnel. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results:
Analyses of latent means revealed more pronounced weight/shape concern in females than males and more pronounced muscularity concern in males than females. Weight/shape concern increased in females over time, whereas muscularity concern remained stable in both genders. Baseline levels of weight/shape concern could be predicted by age and weight status in females and by weight status in males. The only predictor of change in weight/shape concern was weight status in males. Baseline levels of muscularity concern could be predicted by age in females and by weight status in males. Similar effects were found for changes in muscularity concern in both genders. Increases in weight/shape and muscularity concern were associated with more pronounced eating concern.
Discussion:
The results confirm gender differences in distinctive facets of body image concern and its prediction. The relevance of increase in body image concern in adolescents is underlined by its association with eating concern in both genders. Further explanatory variables for change in body dissatisfaction should be examined in future studies.
It has frequently been observed that single emotional events are not only more efficiently processed, but also better remembered, and form longer-lasting memory traces than neutral material. However, when emotional information is perceived as a part of a complex event, such as in the context of or in relation to other events and/or source details, the modulatory effects of emotion are less clear. The present work aims to investigate how emotional, contextual source information modulates the initial encoding and subsequent long-term retrieval of associated neutral material (item memory) and contextual source details (contextual source memory). To do so, a two-task experiment was used, consisting of an incidental encoding task in which neutral objects were displayed over different contextual background scenes which varied in emotional content (unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral), and a delayed retrieval task (1 week), in which previously-encoded objects and new ones were presented. In a series of studies, behavioral indices (Studies 2, 3, and 5), event-related potentials (ERPs; Studies 1-4), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Study 5) were used to investigate whether emotional contexts can rapidly tune the visual processing of associated neutral information (Study 1) and modulate long-term item memory (Study 2), how different recognition memory processes (familiarity vs. recollection) contribute to these emotion effects on item and contextual source memory (Study 3), whether the emotional effects of item memory can also be observed during spontaneous retrieval (Sstudy 4), and which brain regions underpin the modulatory effects of emotional contexts on item and contextual source memory (Study 5). In Study 1, it was observed that emotional contexts by means of emotional associative learning, can rapidly alter the processing of associated neutral information. Neutral items associated with emotional contexts (i.e. emotional associates) compared to neutral ones, showed enhanced perceptual and more elaborate processing after one single pairing, as indexed by larger amplitudes in the P100 and LPP components, respectively. Study 2 showed that emotional contexts produce longer-lasting memory effects, as evidenced by better item memory performance and larger ERP Old/New differences for emotional associates. In Study 3, a mnemonic differentiation was observed between item and contextual source memory which was modulated by emotion. Item memory was driven by familiarity, independently of emotional contexts during encoding, whereas contextual source memory was driven by recollection, and better for emotional material. As in Study 2, enhancing effects of emotional contexts for item memory were observed in ERPs associated with recollection processes. Likewise, for contextual source memory, a pronounced recollection-related ERP enhancement was observed for exclusively emotional contexts. Study 4 showed that the long-term recollection enhancement of emotional contexts on item memory can be observed even when retrieval is not explicitly attempted, as measured with ERPs, suggesting that the emotion enhancing effects on memory are not related to the task embedded during recognition, but to the motivational relevance of the triggering event. In Study 5, it was observed that enhancing effects of emotional contexts on item and contextual source memory involve stronger engagement of the brain's regions which are associated with memory recollection, including areas of the medial temporal lobe, posterior parietal cortex, and prefrontal cortex.
Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional contexts rapidly modulate the initial processing of associated neutral information and the subsequent, long-term item and contextual source memories. The enhanced memory effects of emotional contexts are strongly supported by recollection rather than familiarity processes, and are shown to be triggered when retrieval is both explicitly and spontaneously attempted. These results provide new insights into the modulatory role of emotional information on the visual processing and the long-term recognition memory of complex events. The present findings are integrated into the current theoretical models and future ventures are discussed.
Childhood adversity plays an important role for development of major depressive disorder (MDD). There are differences in subcortical brain structures between patients with MDD and healthy controls, but the specific impact of childhood adversity on such structures in MDD remains unclear. Thus, aim of the present study was to investigate whether childhood adversity is associated with subcortical volumes and how it interacts with a diagnosis of MDD and sex. Within the ENIGMA-MDD network, nine university partner sites, which assessed childhood adversity and magnetic resonance imaging in patients with MDD and controls, took part in the current joint mega-analysis. In this largest effort world-wide to identify subcortical brain structure differences related to childhood adversity, 3036 participants were analyzed for subcortical brain volumes using FreeSurfer. A significant interaction was evident between childhood adversity, MDD diagnosis, sex, and region. Increased exposure to childhood adversity was associated with smaller caudate volumes in females independent of MDD. All subcategories of childhood adversity were negatively associated with caudate volumes in females - in particular emotional neglect and physical neglect (independently from age, ICV, imaging site and MDD diagnosis). There was no interaction effect between childhood adversity and MDD diagnosis on subcortical brain volumes. Childhood adversity is one of the contributors to brain structural abnormalities. It is associated with subcortical brain abnormalities that are relevant to psychiatric disorders such as depression. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Aims Work-anxiety may produce overly negative views of the workplace that impair provider efforts to assess work ability from patient self-report. This study explores the empirical relationships between patient-reported workplace characteristics, work-anxiety, and subjective and objective work ability measures. Methods 125 patients in medical rehabilitation before vocational reintegration were interviewed concerning their vocational situation, and filled in a questionnaire on work-anxiety, subjective mental work ability and perceived workplace characteristics. Treating physicians gave independent socio-medical judgments concerning the patients’ work ability and impairment, and need for supportive means for vocational reintegration. Results Patients with high work-anxiety reported more negative workplace characteristics. Low judgments of work ability were correlated with problematic workplace characteristics. When controlled for work-anxiety, subjective work ability remained related only with social workplace characteristics and with work achievement demands, but independent from situational or task characteristics. Sick leave duration and physicians’ judgment of work ability were not significantly related to patient-reported workplace characteristics. Conclusions In socio-medical work ability assessments, patients with high work-anxiety may over-report negative workplace characteristics that can confound provider estimates of work ability. Assessing work-anxiety may be important to assess readiness for returning to work and initiating work-directed treatments.
Longitudinal pathways of sexual victimization, sexual self-esteem, and depression in women and men
(2017)
Objective: This article presents a longitudinal analysis of the links between sexual assault victimization, depression, and sexual self-esteem by examining their cross-lagged paths among both men and women. Method: Male and female college students (N = 2,425) in Germany participated in the study that comprised 3 data waves in their first, second, and third year of university, separated by 12-month intervals. Sexual assault victimization was assessed at Time 1 (T1) since the age of 14 and at Time 2 (T2) and Time 3 (T3) for the last 12 months. Depression and sexual self-esteem were measured at each wave. Results: Random-intercept cross-lagged panel analyses, controlling for individual differences in depression and sexual self-esteem, showed that sexual assault at T1 predicted depression and lower sexual self-esteem at T2, and depression and lower self-esteem at T2 predicted sexual assault victimization at T3. In addition, significant paths were found from T1 depression to T2 sexual assault victimization and from T2 sexual assault victimization to depression at T3. Sexual victimization at T1 was indirectly linked to sexual victimization at T3 via depression at T2. Both depression and sexual self-esteem at T1 were indirectly linked to sexual victimization at T3. The paths did not differ significantly between men and women. Conclusion: Sexual assault victimization was shown to be a risk factor for both depression as a general mental health indicator and lowered sexual self-esteem as a specific outcome in the domain of sexuality. Moreover, depression and sexual self-esteem increased the vulnerability for sexual assault victimization, which has implications for prevention and intervention efforts. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.