Depressive symptom trajectory following romantic relationship breakup and effects of rumination, neuroticism and cognitive control

Stress from early life to adulthood: Is there a protective role of cognitive control?

Early life events can have long-lasting effects that may impact the quality of life into adulthood. The link between childhood adversities and adult mental and physical health is well documented, however, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Executive functions are assumed to be a key factor in successfully dealing with cognitive-emotional challenges thereby contributing to stress resilience and mental health across the lifespan. Here, we examined whether cognitive control moderates the link between early life adversity and depression. Data was available from a sample of 424 participants aged 20-70 years (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT05155397). They performed in the Stroop task and behavior as well as frontal theta power were recorded. Negative childhood experiences were assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), chronic stress was measured with the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS) and depression symptoms with Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). The CTQ predicted symptoms of chronic stress and depression. Regression models pointed to the TICS as a crucial mediator in the relationship between CTQ and BDI. However, parameters of cognitive control demonstrated a rather weak effect as moderators. These results indicate that chronic stress is an important mediator linking childhood trauma to depression but suggest only a limited role for cognitive control.

Resilience and Vulnerability to Stress-Induced Anhedonia: Unveiling Brain Gene Expression and Mitochondrial Dynamics in a Mouse Chronic Stress Depression Model

The role of altered brain mitochondrial regulation in psychiatric pathologies, including Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), has attracted increasing attention. Aberrant mitochondrial functions were suggested to underlie distinct inter-individual vulnerability to stress-related MDD syndrome. In this context, insulin receptor sensitizers (IRSs) that regulate brain metabolism have become a focus of recent research, as their use in pre-clinical studies can help to elucidate the role of mitochondrial dynamics in this disorder and contribute to the development of new antidepressant treatment. Here, following 2-week chronic mild stress (CMS) using predation, social defeat, and restraint, MDD-related behaviour and brain molecular markers have been investigated along with the hippocampus-dependent performance and emotionality in mice that received the IRS dicholine succinate (DS). In a sucrose test, mice were studied for the key feature of MDD, a decreased sensitivity to reward, called anhedonia. Based on this test, animals were assigned to anhedonic and resilient-to-stress-induced-anhedonia groups, using a previously established criterion of a decrease in sucrose preference below 65%. Such assignment was based on the fact that none of control, non-stressed animals displayed sucrose preference that would be smaller than this value. DS-treated stressed mice displayed ameliorated behaviours in a battery of assays: sucrose preference, coat state, the Y-maze, the marble test, tail suspension, and nest building. CMS-vulnerable mice exhibited overexpression of the inflammatory markers Il-1β, tnf, and Cox-1, as well as 5-htt and 5-ht2a-R, in various brain regions. The alterations in hippocampal gene expression were the closest to clinical findings and were studied further. DS-treated, stressed mice showed normalised hippocampal expression of the plasticity markers Camk4, Camk2, Pka, Adcy1, Creb-ar, Nmda-2r-ar, and Nmda-2r-s. DS-treated and non-treated stressed mice who were resilient or vulnerable to anhedonia were compared for hippocampal mitochondrial pathway regulation using Illumina profiling. Resilient mice revealed overexpression of the mitochondrial complexes NADH dehydrogenase, succinate dehydrogenase, cytochrome bc1, cytochrome c oxidase, F-type and V-type ATPases, and inorganic pyrophosphatase, which were decreased in anhedonic mice. DS partially normalised the expression of both ATPases. We conclude that hippocampal reduction in ATP synthesis is associated with anhedonia and pro-inflammatory brain changes that are ameliorated by DS.

Impact of Social Support on Depressive Symptoms among Postgraduates during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread worldwide, and its related stressors are causing a high prevalence of mental health problems among graduate students. This has the potential for long-term effects on their mental well-being. However, few large-scale studies have been conducted on multiple risk and protective factors. Therefore, we aimed to test the impact of social support on depressive symptoms among graduate students and analyze the mediating role of positive coping and the regulatory role of neuroticism. From 1-8 October 2021, 1812 Chinese graduate students were surveyed online. We used a structural equation model to study the mediating role of positive coping in the relationship between social support and depressive symptoms and used the Hayes PROCESS macro to conduct mediating analysis. The incidence of depressive symptoms was 10.40%. These results showed that positive coping influenced the social support's influence on depression symptoms to some extent. Moreover, neuroticism regulates the indirect relationship between social support and depressive symptoms through active coping. Further research is needed to assess the impact of various forms of social support on graduate students' mental health and to develop strategies for maintaining their well-being, such as network mindfulness.

Dissolution of Non-cohabiting Relationships and Changes in Life Satisfaction and Mental Health

This study investigates how individuals’ life satisfaction and depression are affected by the dissolution of a steady non-cohabiting intimate relationship. Previous studies have focused more on the consequences of divorce and less on the influence of non-cohabiting relationships on the well-being of the individual. The data for this study were taken from pairfam, a large-scale German panel survey, and were used to estimate fixed-effects panel regression models and impact functions to identify the overall effect of dissolution and trajectories after separation. The study sample comprised 2,631 individuals who were observed over the course of 11,219 partnership years. Based on the results of this study, three main findings were reported. First, the dissolution of a non-cohabiting relationship led to a significant decline in mental health and life satisfaction. Second, the trajectories after dissolution suggest that the decline was only temporary, showing readjustment after 1 year. Third, gender differences were identified, suggesting worse consequences for men who experienced a significant decline in both dimensions and did not readjust in life satisfaction until several years after the dissolution. For women, decreases were only found for life satisfaction, but quick readjustments were observed.