Error-related brain activity in pediatric major depressive disorder: An ERP and time-frequency investigation

Robust single-trial event-related potentials differentiate between distress and fear disorders

Recent evidence indicates that measures of brain functioning as indexed by event-related potentials (ERPs) on the electroencephalogram align more closely to transdiagnostic measures of psychopathology than to categorical taxonomies. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is a transdiagnostic, dimensional framework aiming to solve issues of comorbidity, symptom heterogeneity, and arbitrary diagnostic boundaries. Based on shared features, the emotional disorders are allocated into subfactors Distress and Fear. Evidence indicates that disorders that are close in the HiTOP hierarchy share etiology, symptom profiles, and treatment outcomes. However, further studies testing the biological underpinnings of the HiTOP are called for. In this study, we assessed differences between Distress and Fear in a range of well-studied ERP components. In total, 50 patients with emotional disorders were divided into two groups (Distress, N = 25; Fear, N = 25) according to HiTOP criteria and compared against 37 healthy comparison (HC) subjects. Addressing issues in traditional ERP preprocessing and analysis methods, we applied robust single-trial analysis as implemented in the EEGLAB toolbox LIMO EEG. Several ERP components were found to differ between the groups. Surprisingly, we found no difference between Fear and HC for any of the ERPs. This suggests that some well-established results from the literature, e.g., increased error-related negativity in OCD, are not a shared neurobiological correlate of the Fear subfactor. Conversely, for Distress, we found reductions compared to Fear and HC in several ERP components across paradigms. Future studies could utilize HiTOP-validated psychopathology measures to more precisely define subfactor groups.

Associations between physical activity, sedentary time, and neurocognitive function during adolescence: Evidence from accelerometry and the flanker P300

Physical activity and sedentary behavior are two lifestyle factors related to overall health during adolescence. Public health efforts emphasize the importance of increasing physical activity to improve physical and mental health outcomes, including neurocognitive functioning. However, the unique effects of sedentary behavior on neurocognitive functioning remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate associations between daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary time, and neurocognitive functioning during adolescence. Fifty-seven participants (37% female) between the ages of 13 and 17 years wore an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for approximately 1 week to quantify daily MVPA and sedentary time prior to completing a flanker task to elicit P300 amplitude at a laboratory visit. Results indicated that daily MVPA and sedentary time exhibited unique, significant associations with P300 amplitude in opposing directions: increased daily MVPA was correlated with larger P300 amplitudes, while increased daily sedentary time was linked to reduced P300 amplitudes. Notably, these associations remained significant even after adjusting for age, sex, and BMI-for-age percentile. These findings underscore the independent influence of daily MVPA and sedentary time on neurocognitive functioning during adolescence. Future research should explore whether modifying MVPA levels can improve neurocognitive outcomes-including the P300-during adolescence, and determine whether reducing sedentary time results in similar or differential effects.

Rethinking the risk for depression using the RDoC: A psychophysiological perspective

Considering that the classical categorical approach to mental disorders does not allow a clear identification of at-risk conditions, the dimensional approach provided by the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) is useful in the exploration of vulnerability to psychopathology. In the RDoC era, psychophysiological models have an important role in the reconceptualization of mental disorders. Indeed, progress in the study of depression vulnerability has increasingly been informed by psychophysiological models. By adopting an RDoC lens, this narrative review focuses on how psychophysiological models can be used to advance our knowledge of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying depression vulnerability. Findings from psychophysiological research that explored multiple RDoC domains in populations at-risk for depression are reviewed and discussed. Future directions for the application of psychophysiological research in reaching a more complete understanding of depression vulnerability and, ultimately, improving clinical utility, are presented.