Negative association between resilience and event-related potentials evoked by negative emotion

The impact of psychological resilience on chronic patients' depression during the dynamic Zero-COVID policy: the mediating role of stigma and the moderating role of sleep quality

OBJECTIVE

Chronic patients are experiencing depression caused by themselves or the surrounding environment, how to cope with the change of mentality and adjust the psychological stress response, especially under the background of the current dynamic Zero-COVID policy in China, is a problem worth further discussion. The researchers constructed a mediating regulation model to test the influence of psychological resilience on depression of chronic patients during dynamic Zero-COVID, as well as the mediating role of stigma and the moderating role of sleep.

METHOD

From October 2021 to February 2022, this study used a multi-stage sampling method and random number table method to collect data in the Shang Cheng District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Firstly, the Second Affiliated Hospital of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, a third-class hospital was randomly selected from the Shang Cheng District. Secondly, three departments were strategically selected from this hospital: endocrinology, dermatology, and traditional Chinese medicine. Thirdly, survey points were set up in each department, and chronic patients were strategically selected for questionnaire surveys. Finally, a face-to-face survey was conducted on 398 chronic patients who met the criteria for inclusion. In addition, chronic medical illness burden was assessed using the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale-Geriatrics (CIRS-G), psychological resilience was measured by the Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), stigma was measured by the Stigma Scale for Chronic Illness (SSCI), sleep was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI) and depression was estimated by the Patient Health Questionaire-9(PHQ-9). SPSS (version 25.0) and PROCESS (version 4.0) were used for correlation analysis, mediation analysis, and mediated moderation analysis.

RESULTS

Psychological resilience was negatively correlated with depression, stigma, and sleep. Depression was positively correlated with stigma and sleep. Stigma and sleep were positively correlated; Stigma played a mediating role in the relationship between psychological resilience and depression; Sleep moderated the first half of the pathway "psychological resilience [Formula: see text] stigma [Formula: see text] depression".

CONCLUSION

Psychological resilience affected depression directly and indirectly through stigma. At the same time, sleep played a moderating role between psychological resilience and depression. The correlation between psychological resilience and stigma was stronger when levels of sleep levels were higher.

Conceptualizing psychological resilience through resting-state functional MRI in a mentally healthy population: a systematic review

Conceptualizations and operational definitions of psychological resilience vary across resilience neuroimaging studies. Data on the neural features of resilience among healthy individuals has been scarce. Furthermore, findings from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were inconsistent across studies. This systematic review summarized resting-state fMRI findings in different modalities from various operationally defined resilience in a mentally healthy population. The PubMed and MEDLINE databases were searched. Articles that focused on resting-state fMRI in relation to resilience, and published before 2022, were targeted. Orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula and amygdala, were reported the most from the 19 included studies. Regions in emotional network was reported the most from the included studies. The involvement of regions like amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex indicated the relationships between emotional processing and resilience. No common brain regions or neural pathways were identified across studies. The emotional network appears to be studied the most in association with resilience. Matching fMRI modalities and operational definitions of resilience across studies are essential for meta-analysis.

Integrating the pattern of negative emotion processing and acute stress response with childhood stress among healthy young adults

Background: Childhood adversity might impair corticolimbic brain regions, which play a crucial role in emotion processing and the acute stress response. The dimensional model of childhood adversity proposed that deprivation and threat dimensions might associated with individuals' development through different mechanisms. However, few studies have explored the relationship between different dimensions of childhood stress, emotion processing, and acute stress reactivity despite the overlapping brain regions of the last two. With the aid of event-related potentials technique, we explore whether negative emotion processing, which might be particularly relevant for adaptive stress responding among individuals with adverse childhood experience, mediates the relationship between dimensional childhood stress and acute stress response. Method: Fifty-one young adults completed a free-viewing task to evaluate neural response to negative stimuli measured by late positive potential (LPP) of ERPs (Event-related potentials). On a separate day, heart rate and salivary cortisol were collected during a social-evaluative stress challenge (i.e., TSST, Trier Social Stress Test). After the TSST, childhood trauma questionnaire was measured to indicate the level of abuse (as a proxy of threat) and neglect (as a proxy of deprivation) dimensions. Multiple linear regression and mediation analysis were used to explore the relationship among the childhood stress, emotion processing and acute stress response. Results: Higher level of childhood abuse (but not neglect) was distinctly related to smaller LPP amplitudes to negative stimuli, as well as smaller heart rate reactivity to acute stress. For these participants, smaller LPP amplitudes were linked with smaller heart rate reactivity to acute stress. Furthermore, decreased LPP amplitudes to negative stimuli mediated the relationship between higher level of childhood abuse and blunted heart rate reactivity to stress. Conclusions: Consistent with the dimensional model of childhood stress, our study showed that childhood abuse is distinctly associated with neural as well as physiological response to threat. Furthermore, the blunted neural response to negative stimuli might be the underlying mechanism in which childhood abuse leads to the blunted acute stress response. Considering that all the participants are healthy in the present study, the blunted processing of negative stimuli might rather reflect adaptation instead of vulnerability, in order to prevent stress overshooting in the face of early-life threatening experiences.

Associations between mental wellbeing and fMRI neural bases underlying responses to positive emotion in a twin sample

BACKGROUND

Although mental wellbeing has been linked with positive health outcomes, including longevity and improved emotional and cognitive functioning, studies examining the underlying neural mechanisms of both subjective and psychological wellbeing have been sparse. We assessed whether both forms of wellbeing are associated with neural activity engaged during positive and negative emotion processing and the extent to which this association is driven by genetics or environment.

METHODS

We assessed mental wellbeing in 230 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins using a previously validated questionnaire (COMPAS-W) and undertook functional magnetic resonance imaging during a facial emotion viewing task. We used linear mixed models to analyse the association between COMPAS-W scores and emotion-elicited neural activation. Univariate twin modelling was used to evaluate heritability of each brain region. Multivariate twin modelling was used to compare twin pairs to assess the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to this association.

RESULTS

Higher levels of wellbeing were associated with greater neural activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, localised in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), in response to positive emotional expressions of happiness. Univariate twin modelling showed activity in the IFG to have 20% heritability. Multivariate twin modelling suggested that the association between wellbeing and positive emotion-elicited neural activity was driven by common variance from unique environment (r = 0.208) rather than shared genetics.

CONCLUSIONS

Higher mental wellbeing may have a basis in greater engagement of prefrontal neural regions in response to positive emotion, and this association may be modifiable by unique life experiences.

Neurocognitive correlates of psychological resilience: Event-related potential studies

BACKGROUND

There is a growing interest in exploring the neurocognitive mechanisms that may underlie psychological resilience. However, how the bottom-up automatic information processing relates to trait resilience has received less attention. We aimed to explore the relationship between trait resilience and trait-like automatic information processing in healthy adults.

METHODS

Eighty-four healthy adults were recruited to explore whether and how resilience was related to sensory sensitivity by event-related potentials (ERPs). Resilience was measured by Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Sensory sensitivity, more specifically, sensitivity of automatic mismatch detection was measured by two ERPs components, i.e., the mismatch negativity (MMN) with a passive auditory oddball paradigm and the error-related negativity (ERN) with an auditory Go/NoGo task. Using the multiple linear regression analyses, the relationship between self-reported resilience and the sensitivity of automatic mismatch detection (MMN/ERN amplitude/latency) was explored.

RESULTS

The results showed that psychological resilience was positively correlated with both MMN and ERN latencies, i.e., higher resilience scores were associated with delayed MMN and ERN latencies. However, resilience was not significantly correlated with MMN and ERN amplitudes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggested that relatively higher resilience might link with less sensory sensitivity as reflected by slower automatic detection to mismatch information in the environment.

The immediate and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: A one-year follow-up study

Several recent publications have revealed that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients were adversely affected during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); however, how long this negative impact will last is unclear. Our study aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on OCD patients after one year. Online questionnaires were administered, and clinical interviews were conducted to assess OCD symptoms, depression, anxiety, information about COVID-19 and mental resilience at baseline (1 December 2019-1 January 2020), during early COVID-19 (26 February-25 March 2020) and at the one-year follow-up (26 February-25 March 2021). A total of 110 OCD patients were enrolled. Our findings showed that OCD, depressive and anxiety symptoms worsened during early COVID-19, and the negative impact persisted at the one-year follow-up. Multivariate analysis showed that female gender, concern about COVID-19 and OCD symptom severity at baseline were risk factors for exacerbation of OCD symptoms during early COVID-19, while optimism, as one composite factor of resilience, was a protective factor against exacerbation of OCD symptoms both during early COVID-19 and at follow-up. Our study showed that COVID-19 had immediate and long-term impacts on the exacerbation of OCD symptoms, and interventions targeted at improving resilience are recommended.

The Importance of Well-Being on Resiliency of Filipino Adults During the COVID-19 Enhanced Community Quarantine: A Necessary Condition Analysis

Nation-wide community quarantines and social distancing are part of the new normal because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Since extensive and prolonged lockdowns are relatively novel experiences, not much is known about the well-being of individuals in such extreme situations. This research effort investigated the relationship between well-being elements and resiliency of 533 Filipino adults who were placed under the nationwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants comprised of 376 females (70.56%) and 157 males (29.45%). The median and mode ages of the participants is 23 years, while 25 is the mean age. PERMA Profiler was used to measure participants’ well-being elements, while Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale-10 (CD-RISC-10) was used to measure their resiliency. Collected data were analyzed using the regression model and necessary condition analysis. This study corroborated that all the five pillars of well-being are significant positive correlates of resiliency (p < 0.00) in quarantined adults. The results shown accomplishment (β = 0.447, p < 0.01) positively predicts resiliency, while negative emotions (β = −0.171, p < 0.00) negatively predict resiliency. Lastly, the five pillars of well-being are necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions (ceiling envelopment with free disposal hull, CE-FDH p < 0.00) of resiliency. Our results cast a new light on well-being elements as constraints rather than enablers of resiliency. This novel result shows that optimum resiliency is only possible when all the five pillars of well-being are taken care of and when a person is at least minimally contented with their physical health. The present findings underscore the importance of a holistic as against an atomistic approach to maintaining good mental health, which suggests that deficiencies in certain areas of well-being may not be fully addressed by overcompensating on other areas, as all five pillars of well-being are necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of resiliency. The study ends with the recommendation for the use of necessary condition analysis to study both classical and novel psychological research problems.

Psychobiological factors of resilience and depression in late life

In contrast to traditional perspectives of resilience as a stable, trait-like characteristic, resilience is now recognized as a multidimentional, dynamic capacity influenced by life-long interactions between internal and environmental resources. We review psychosocial and neurobiological factors associated with resilience to late-life depression (LLD). Recent research has identified both psychosocial characteristics associated with elevated LLD risk (e.g., insecure attachment, neuroticism) and psychosocial processes that may be useful intervention targets (e.g., self-efficacy, sense of purpose, coping behaviors, social support). Psychobiological factors include a variety of endocrine, genetic, inflammatory, metabolic, neural, and cardiovascular processes that bidirectionally interact to affect risk for LLD onset and course of illness. Several resilience-enhancing intervention modalities show promise for the prevention and treatment of LLD, including cognitive/psychological or mind-body (positive psychology; psychotherapy; heart rate variability biofeedback; meditation), movement-based (aerobic exercise; yoga; tai chi), and biological approaches (pharmacotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy). Additional research is needed to further elucidate psychosocial and biological factors that affect risk and course of LLD. In addition, research to identify psychobiological factors predicting differential treatment response to various interventions will be essential to the development of more individualized and effective approaches to the prevention and treatment of LLD.