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Positive coping styles and perigenual ACC volume: two related mechanisms for conferring resilience?
(2016)
Stress exposure has been linked to increased rates of depression and anxiety in adults, particularly in females, and has been associated with maladaptive changes in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is an important brain structure involved in internalizing disorders. Coping styles are important mediators of the stress reaction by establishing homeostasis, and may thus confer resilience to stress-related psychopathology. Anatomical scans were acquired in 181 healthy participants at age 25 years. Positive coping styles were determined using a self-report questionnaire (German Stress Coping Questionnaire, SVF78) at age 22 years. Adult anxiety and depression symptoms were assessed at ages 22, 23 and 25 years with the Young Adult Self-Report. Information on previous internalizing diagnoses was obtained by diagnostic interview (2-19 years). Positive coping styles were associated with increased ACC volume. ACC volume and positive coping styles predicted anxiety and depression in a sex-dependent manner with increased positive coping and ACC volume being related to lower levels of psychopathology in females, but not in males. These results remained significant when controlled for previous internalizing diagnoses. These findings indicate that positive coping styles and ACC volume are two linked mechanisms, which may serve as protective factors against internalizing disorders.
Converging evidence has highlighted the association between poverty and conduct disorder (CD) without specifying neurobiological pathways. Neuroimaging research has emphasized structural and functional alterations in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) as one key mechanism underlying this disorder. The present study aimed to clarify the long-term influence of early poverty on OFC volume and its association with CD symptoms in healthy participants of an epidemiological cohort study followed since birth. At age 25 years, voxel-based morphometry was applied to study brain volume differences. Poverty (0 = non-exposed (N = 134), I = exposed (N = 33)) and smoking during pregnancy were determined using a standardized parent interview, and information on maternal responsiveness was derived from videotaped mother infant interactions at the age of 3 months. CD symptoms were assessed by diagnostic interview from 8 to 19 years of age. Information on life stress was acquired at each assessment and childhood maltreatment was measured using retrospective self-report at the age of 23 years. Analyses were adjusted for sex, parental psychopathology and delinquency, obstetric adversity, parental education, and current poverty. Individuals exposed to early life poverty exhibited a lower OFC volume. Moreover, we replicated previous findings of increased CD symptoms as a consequence of childhood poverty. This effect proved statistically mediated by OFC volume and exposure to life stress and smoking during pregnancy, but not by childhood maltreatment and maternal responsiveness. These findings underline the importance of studying the impact of early life adversity on brain alterations and highlight the need for programs to decrease income-related disparities.
Biodiversity conservation and agricultural production have been largely framed as separate goals for landscapes in the discourse on land use. Although there is an increasing tendency to move away from this dichotomy in theory, the tendency is perpetuated by the spatially explicit approaches used in research and management practice. Transition zones (TZ) have previously been defined as areas where two adjacent fields or patches interact, and so they occur abundantly throughout agricultural landscapes. Biodiversity patterns in TZ have been extensively studied, but their relationship to yield patterns and social-ecological dimensions has been largely neglected. Focusing on European, temperate agricultural landscapes, we outline three areas of research and management that together demonstrate how TZ might be used to facilitate an integrated landscape approach: (i) plant and animal species' use and response to boundaries and the resulting effects on yield, for a deeper understanding of how landscape structure shapes quantity and quality of TZ; (ii) local knowledge on field or patch-level management and its interactions with biodiversity and yield in TZ, and (iii) conflict prevention and collaborative management across land-use boundaries.
Ventral striatum and amygdala activity as convergence sites for early adversity and conduct disorder
(2017)
Childhood family adversity (CFA) increases the risk for conduct disorder (CD) and has been associated with alterations in regions of affective processing like ventral striatum (VS) and amygdala. However, no study so far has demonstrated neural converging effects of CFA and CD in the same sample. At age 25 years, functional MRI data during two affective tasks, i.e. a reward (N = 171) and a face-matching paradigm (N = 181) and anatomical scans (N = 181) were acquired in right-handed currently healthy participants of an epidemiological study followed since birth. CFA during childhood was determined using a standardized parent interview. Disruptive behaviors and CD diagnoses during childhood and adolescence were obtained by diagnostic interview (2–19 years), temperamental reward dependence was assessed by questionnaire (15 and 19 years).
CFA predicted increased CD and amygdala volume. Both exposure to CFA and CD were associated with a decreased VS response during reward anticipation and blunted amygdala activity during face-matching. CD mediated the effect of CFA on brain activity. Temperamental reward dependence was negatively correlated with CFA and CD and positively with VS activity. These findings underline the detrimental effects of CFA on the offspring's affective processing and support the importance of early postnatal intervention programs aiming to reduce childhood adversity factors.