There is now a well-established link between childhood adversity (CA) and schizophrenia. Similar structural abnormalities to those found in schizophrenia including alterations in grey-matter volume have also been shown in those who experience CA.

We examined whether global estimates of cortical thickness or surface area were altered in those familial high-risk subjects who had been referred to a social worker or the Children's Panel compared to those who had not.

We found that the cortical surface area of those who were referred to the Children's Panel was significantly smaller than those who had not been referred, but cortical thickness was not significantly altered. There was also an effect of social work referral on cortical surface area but not on thickness.

Cortical surface area increases post-natally more than cortical thickness. Our findings suggest that CA can influence structural changes in the brain and it is likely to have a greater impact on cortical surface area than on cortical thickness.

Externalizing disorders are known to be partly heritable, but the biological pathways linking genetic risk to the manifestation of these costly behaviors remain under investigation. This study sought to identify neural phenotypes associated with genomic vulnerability for externalizing disorders.

One-hundred fifty-five White, non-Hispanic veterans were genotyped using a genome-wide array and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Genetic susceptibility was assessed using an independently developed polygenic score (PS) for externalizing, and functional neural networks were identified using graph theory based network analysis. Tasks of inhibitory control and psychiatric diagnosis (alcohol/substance use disorders) were used to measure externalizing phenotypes.

A polygenic externalizing disorder score (PS) predicted connectivity in a brain circuit (10 nodes, nine links) centered on left amygdala that included several cortical [bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) pars triangularis, left rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC)] and subcortical (bilateral amygdala, hippocampus, and striatum) regions. Directional analyses revealed that bilateral amygdala influenced left prefrontal cortex (IFG) in participants scoring higher on the externalizing PS, whereas the opposite direction of influence was observed for those scoring lower on the PS. Polygenic variation was also associated with higher Participation Coefficient for bilateral amygdala and left rACC, suggesting that genes related to externalizing modulated the extent to which these nodes functioned as communication hubs.

Findings suggest that externalizing polygenic risk is associated with disrupted connectivity in a neural network implicated in emotion regulation, impulse control, and reinforcement learning. Results provide evidence that this network represents a genetically associated neurobiological vulnerability for externalizing disorders.

A large body of research states that cognitive impairment in schizophrenia is static. Nevertheless, most previous studies lack a control group or have small study samples or short follow-up periods.

We aimed to address these limitations by studying a large epidemiological cohort of patients with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders and a comparable control sample for a 10-year period.

Our results support the generalized stability of cognitive functions in schizophrenia spectrum disorders considering the entire group. However, the existence of a subgroup of patients characterized by deteriorating cognition and worse long-term clinical outcomes must be noted. Nevertheless, it was not possible to identify concomitant factors or predictors of deterioration (all Ps > 0.05).

Cognitive functions in schizophrenia spectrum disorder are stable; however, a subgroup of subjects that deteriorate can be characterized.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which frequently persists into adulthood. The primary goal of the current study was to (a) investigate attentional functions of stimulant medication-naïve adults with ADHD, and (b) investigate the effects of 6 weeks of methylphenidate treatment on these functions.

The study was a prospective, non-randomized, non-blinded, 6-week follow-up design with 42 stimulant medication-naïve adult patients with ADHD, and 42 age and parental education-matched healthy controls. Assessments included measures of visual attention, based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), which yields five precise measures of aspects of visual attention; general psychopathology; ADHD symptoms; dyslexia screening; and estimates of IQ.

At baseline, significant differences were found between patients and controls on three attentional parameters: visual short-term memory capacity, threshold of conscious perception, and to a lesser extent visual processing speed. Secondary analyses revealed no significant correlations between TVA parameter estimates and severity of ADHD symptomatology. At follow-up, significant improvements were found specifically for visual processing speed; this improvement had a large effect size, and remained when controlling for re-test effects, IQ, and dyslexia screen performance. There were no significant correlations between changes in visual processing speed and changes in ADHD symptomatology.

ADHD in adults may be associated with deficits in three distinct aspects of visual attention. Improvements after 6 weeks of medication are seen specifically in visual processing speed, which could represent an improvement in alertness. Clinical symptoms and visual attentional deficits may represent separate aspects of ADHD in adults.

Racial/ethnic differences in mental health outcomes after a traumatic event have been reported. Less is known about factors that explain these differences. We examined whether pre-, peri-, and post-trauma risk factors explained racial/ethnic differences in acute and longer-term posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety symptoms in patients hospitalized following traumatic injury or illness.

PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms were assessed during hospitalization and 2 and 6 months later among 1310 adult patients (6.95% Asian, 14.96% Latinx, 23.66% Black, 4.58% multiracial, and 49.85% White). Individual growth curve models examined racial/ethnic differences in PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms at each time point and in their rate of change over time, and whether pre-, peri-, and post-trauma risk factors explained these differences.

Latinx, Black, and multiracial patients had higher acute PTSD symptoms than White patients, which remained higher 2 and 6 months post-hospitalization for Black and multiracial patients. PTSD symptoms were also found to improve faster among Latinx than White patients. Risk factors accounted for most racial/ethnic differences, although Latinx patients showed lower 6-month PTSD symptoms and Black patients lower acute and 2-month depression and anxiety symptoms after accounting for risk factors. Everyday discrimination, financial stress, past mental health problems, and social constraints were related to these differences.

Racial/ethnic differences in risk factors explained most differences in acute and longer-term PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Understanding how these risk factors relate to posttraumatic symptoms could help reduce disparities by facilitating early identification of patients at risk for mental health problems.

Prior meta-analytic work has highlighted important etiological distinctions between aggressive (AGG) and non-aggressive rule-breaking (RB) dimensions of antisocial behavior. Among these is the finding that RB is influenced by the environment more than is AGG. Relatively little research, however, has sought to identify the specific environmental experiences that contribute to this effect. The current study sought to do just this.

We examined whether unrelated adults residing in the same neighborhood (n = 1915 participants in 501 neighborhoods) were more similar in their AGG and RB than would be expected by chance. Analyses focused on simple multi-level models, with the participant as the lower-level unit and the neighborhood as the upper-level unit.

Results revealed little to no evidence of neighborhood-level variance in AGG. By contrast, 11+% of the variance in RB could be predicted from participant neighborhood, results that persisted even when considering the possibility of genetic relatedness across participants and neighborhood selection effects. Moreover, 17% of this neighborhood-level variance in RB was accounted for by neighborhood structural characteristics and social processes.

Findings bolster prior suggestions that broader contextual experiences, like the structural and social characteristics of one's neighborhood, contribute in a meaningful way to RB in particular. Our results also tentatively imply that this association may be environmental in origin. Future work should seek to develop additional, stronger designs capable of more clearly leveraging genetic un-relatedness to improve causal inferences regarding the environment.

Childhood maltreatment (CM) exerts various long-lasting psychological and biological changes in affected individuals, with inflammation being an interconnecting element. Besides chronic low-grade inflammation, CM might also affect the energy production of cells by altering the function and density of mitochondria, i.e. the body's main energy suppliers. Here, we compared mitochondrial respiration and density in intact peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), from women with and without CM between two time points, i.e. at the highly inflammatory phase within 1 week after parturition (t0) and again after 1 year (t2).

CM exposure was assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Whole blood was collected from n = 52 healthy women within the study ‘My Childhood – Your Childhood’ at both time points to isolate and cryopreserve PBMC. Thawed PBMC were used to measure mitochondrial respiration and density by high-resolution respirometry followed by spectrophotometric analyses of citrate-synthase activity.

Over time, quantitative respiratory parameters increased, while qualitative flux control ratios decreased, independently of CM. Women with CM showed higher mitochondrial respiration and density at t0, but not at t2. We found significant CM group × time interaction effects for ATP-turnover-related respiration and mitochondrial density.

This is the first study to longitudinally investigate mitochondrial bioenergetics in postpartum women with and without CM. Our results indicate that CM-related mitochondrial alterations reflect allostatic load, probably due to higher inflammatory states during parturition, which normalize later. However, later inflammatory states might moderate the vulnerability for a second-hit on the level of mitochondrial bioenergetics, at least in immune cells.

The extent to which digital media use by adolescents contributes to poor mental health, or vice-versa, remains unclear. The purpose of the present study is to clarify the strength and direction of associations between adolescent internet use and the development of depression symptoms using a longitudinal modeling approach. We also examine whether associations differ for boys and girls.

Data are drawn from (N = 1547) participants followed for the Quebec longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD 1998–2020). Youth self-reported internet use in terms of the average hours of use per week at the ages of 13, 15, and 17. Youth also self-reported depression symptoms at the same ages.

After testing sex-invariance, random intercepts cross-lagged panel models stratified by sex, revealed that internet use by girls was associated with significant within-person (time-varying) change in depression symptoms. Girl's internet use at age 13 was associated with increased depression symptoms at age 15 (ß = 0.12) and internet use at age 15 increased depression at age 17 (ß = 0.10). For boys, internet use was not associated with significant time varying change in depression symptoms.

The present findings support the hypothesis that internet use by adolescents can represent a significant risk factor for the development of depressive symptoms, particularly in girls.

Persistent psychological distress associated with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been well documented. This study aimed to identify pre-COVID brain functional connectome that predicts pandemic-related distress symptoms among young adults.

Baseline neuroimaging studies and assessment of general distress using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale were performed with 100 healthy individuals prior to wide recognition of the health risks associated with the emergence of COVID-19. They were recontacted for the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist in the period of community-level outbreaks, and for follow-up distress evaluation again 1 year later. We employed the network-based statistic approach to identify connectome that predicted the increase of distress based on 136-region-parcellation with assigned network membership. Predictive performance of connectome features and causal relations were examined by cross-validation and mediation analyses.

The connectome features that predicted emergence of distress after COVID contained 70 neural connections. Most within-network connections were located in the default mode network (DMN), and affective network-DMN and dorsal attention network-DMN links largely constituted between-network pairs. The hippocampus emerged as the most critical hub region. Predictive models of the connectome remained robust in cross-validation. Mediation analyses demonstrated that COVID-related posttraumatic stress partially explained the correlation of connectome to the development of general distress.

Brain functional connectome may fingerprint individuals with vulnerability to psychological distress associated with the COVID pandemic. Individuals with brain neuromarkers may benefit from the corresponding interventions to reduce the risk or severity of distress related to fear of COVID-related challenges.