Early maternal care may counteract familial liability for psychopathology in the reward circuitry

Parental Deprivation- and Threat-Based Factors Associated with Youth Emotion-Based Neurocircuitry and Externalizing Behavior: A Systematic Review

Parental factors, including negative parenting practices (e.g., family conflict, low monitoring), parental depression, and parental substance use, are associated with externalizing behaviors among youth. However, the ways in which these parental factors are associated with youth brain function and consequent externalizing behavior has been less studied. Both the dimensional and stress acceleration models provide frameworks for understanding how parental factors may be associated with frontolimbic and frontoparietal networks implicated in emotional attention and regulation processes. The current review builds upon this work by examining how deprivation- and threat-based parental factors are associated with youth neurocircuitry involved in emotional functioning and externalizing behaviors. A systematic review using PRISMA guidelines was completed and included five studies assessing parenting behaviors, six studies assessing parental depressive symptoms and/or diagnosis, and 12 studies assessing parental history of substance use. Synthesis of reviewed studies discusses support for the dimensional and stress acceleration models within the context of deprivation and threat. Further, a limited number of studies tested (i.e., six studies) and supported (i.e., three studies) youth neural structure and function as a mediator of the association between parental factors and youth externalizing behavior. Specific recommendations for future work include more deliberate planning related to sample composition, improved clarity related to parental constructs, consistency in methodology, and longitudinal study design in order to better understand associations between contextual parental influences and youth neural and behavioral functioning.

Lifespan adversities affect neural correlates of behavioral inhibition in adults

Introduction

Growing evidence suggests that adverse experiences have long-term effects on executive functioning and underlying neural circuits. Previous work has identified functional abnormalities during inhibitory control in frontal brain regions in individuals exposed to adversities. However, these findings were mostly limited to specific adversity types such as maltreatment and prenatal substance abuse.

Methods

We used data from a longitudinal birth cohort study (n = 121, 70 females) to investigate the association between adversities and brain responses during inhibitory control. At the age of 33 years, all participants completed a stop-signal task during fMRI and an Adult Self-Report scale. We collected seven prenatal and postnatal adversity measures across development and performed a principal component analysis to capture common variations across those adversities, which resulted in a three-factor solution. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify links between adversities and brain responses during inhibitory control using the identified adversity factors to show the common effect and single adversity measures to show the specific contribution of each adversity. To find neural correlates of current psychopathology during inhibitory control, we performed additional regression analyses using Adult Self-Report subscales.

Results

The first adversity factor reflecting prenatal maternal smoking and postnatal psychosocial adversities was related to higher activation during inhibitory control in bilateral inferior frontal gyri, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and middle temporal gyri. Similar results were found for the specific contribution of the adversities linked to the first adversity factor. In contrast, we did not identify any significant association between brain responses during inhibitory control and the second adversity factor reflecting prenatal maternal stress and obstetric risk or the third adversity factor reflecting lower maternal sensitivity. Higher current depressive symptoms were associated with higher activation in the bilateral insula and anterior cingulate cortex during inhibitory control.

Conclusion

Our findings extended previous work and showed that early adverse experiences have a long-term effect on the neural circuitry of inhibitory control in adulthood. Furthermore, the overlap between neural correlates of adversity and depressive symptomatology suggests that adverse experiences might increase vulnerability via neural alterations, which needs to be investigated by future longitudinal research.

Effects of Parenting Environment on Child and Adolescent Social-Emotional Brain Function

The caregiving environment that children and adolescents experience is critically important for their social-emotional development. Parenting may affect child social-emotional outcomes through its effects in shaping the child's developing brain. Research has begun to investigate effects of parenting on child and adolescent brain function in humans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Here we review these initial studies. These studies find associations between parenting behavior and child and adolescent functional activation in neural networks involved in emotional arousal, emotion regulation (ER), reward processing, cognitive control, and social-emotional information processing. Findings from these studies suggest that higher negative parenting and lower positive parenting are generally associated with heightened activation in emotional arousal networks in response to negative emotional stimuli in youth. Further, findings indicate that lower positive parenting is associated with higher response in reward processing networks to monetary reward in youth. Finally, findings show that lower positive parenting predicts lower activation in cognitive control networks during cognitive control tasks and less adaptive neural responses to parent-specific stimuli. Several studies found these associations to be moderated by child sex or psychopathology risk status and we discuss these moderating factors and discuss implications of findings for children's social-emotional development.

Infant social interactions and brain development: A systematic review

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Associations between caregiver-infant behaviours during social interactions and brain development outcomes were investigated.

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Caregivers' and infants' behaviours in interactions related to children’s structural, functional and connectivity measures.

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Concurrent associations between behavioural and brain measures were apparent as early as three months postnatally.

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Long-term associations between behaviours in early interactions and brain development outcomes were observed decades later.

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Individual differences in early interactions and associated brain development is an important avenue for further research.

From birth, interactions with others are an integral part of a person’s daily life. In infancy, social exchanges are thought to be critical for optimal brain development. This systematic review explores this association by drawing together infant studies that relate adult-infant behaviours – coded from their social interactions - to children’s brain measures collected during a neuroimaging session in infancy, childhood, adolescence or adulthood. In total, we identified 55 studies that explored associations between infants’ social interactions and neural measures. These studies show that several aspects of caregiver-infant behaviours are associated with, or predict, a variety of neural responses in infants, children and adolescents. The presence of both concurrent and long-term associations - some of which are first observed just a few months postnatally and extend into adulthood - open an important research avenue and motivate further longitudinal studies.

[The domain "social processes" in the system of research domain criteria: current state and perspectives]

Soziale Prozesse und ihre Störungen, z. B. bei Autismusspektrumstörungen und psychotischen Störungen, sind seit jeher zentral für das Fach Psychiatrie. Die letzten Jahrzehnte haben zu beeindruckenden Fortschritten in unserem Verständnis der zugrunde liegenden neurobiologischen Grundlagen geführt, aber auch in der Art und Weise, wie wir soziale Prozesse untersuchen und analysieren. Seit ihrer Einführung bieten die Research Domain Criteria ein leistungsstarkes Rahmenwerk für die Operationalisierung und Unterteilung komplexer sozialer Prozesse in einer Weise, die sowohl neurobiologisch orientierte als auch klinische Ansätze zulässt. In diesem Artikel fassen wir die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse für jedes der vier grundlegenden Konstrukte der Domäne sozialer Prozesse zusammen und diskutieren sie: (a) Zugehörigkeit und Bindung, (b) soziale Kommunikation, (c) Wahrnehmung und Verständnis des Selbst und (d) Wahrnehmung und Verständnis anderer. Dabei heben wir insbesondere die klinische Relevanz der Erkenntnisse hervor, die auf dem Gebiet der sozialen Neurowissenschaften gewonnen wurden, und diskutieren die daraus resultierende zunehmende Bedeutung transdiagnostischer Konzepte in der angewandten Forschung. Schließlich stellen wir drei innovative Forschungsmethoden vor, die auf den sich beschleunigenden technologischen Fortschritten des letzten Jahrzehnts aufbauen und es zunehmend ermöglichen, komplexe soziale Interaktionen auch unter realistischeren und alltagsnäheren Bedingungen zu untersuchen.

Prediction Along a Developmental Perspective in Psychiatry: How Far Might We Go?

Most mental disorders originate in childhood, and once symptoms present, a variety of psychosocial and cognitive maladjustments may arise. Although early childhood problems are generally associated with later mental health impairments and psychopathology, pluripotent transdiagnostic trajectories may manifest. Possible predictors range from behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms, genetic predispositions, environmental and social factors, and psychopathological comorbidity. They may manifest in altered neurodevelopmental trajectories and need to be validated capitalizing on large-scale multi-modal epidemiological longitudinal cohorts. Moreover, clinical and etiological variability between patients with the same disorders represents a major obstacle to develop effective treatments. Hence, in order to achieve stratification of patient samples opening the avenue of adapting and optimizing treatment for the individual, there is a need to integrate data from multi-dimensionally phenotyped clinical cohorts and cross-validate them with epidemiological cohort data. In the present review, we discuss these aspects in the context of externalizing and internalizing disorders summarizing the current state of knowledge, obstacles, and pitfalls. Although a large number of studies have already increased our understanding on neuropsychobiological mechanisms of mental disorders, it became also clear that this knowledge might only be the tip of the Eisberg and that a large proportion still remains unknown. We discuss prediction strategies and how the integration of different factors and methods may provide useful contributions to research and at the same time may inform prevention and intervention.

[Cohort studies in child and adolescent psychiatry]

BACKGROUND

Longitudinal cohort studies with early start and life span perspectives are increasingly recognized as being crucial to uncover developmental trajectories as well as risk and resilience factors of psychiatric disorders.

OBJECTIVE

The importance of longitudinal studies is presented and the main findings of the Mannheim study of children at risk (MARS), the adolescent brain cognitive development (ABCD), the pediatric and adolescent health survey (Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurvey, KiGGS) and the AIMS longitudinal European autism project (LEAP) cohort studies are described.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A literature search was carried out in MEDLINE.

RESULTS

The MARS followed participants with psychosocial and organic risks over more than 30 years starting from birth and showed the importance of early risk factors (prenatal period up to early childhood) for neuropsychosocial development. The ABCD cohort study (start 9-10 years old) underlined the developmental significance of early socioemotional and prenatal risks as well as toxin exposure. The KiGGS cohort followed children and adolescents from age 0-17 years up to the ages of 10-28 years. Main findings underline the importance of the socioeconomic status and gender-specific effects with respect to sensitive periods for the onset and trajectories of psychiatric disorders. The AIMS cohort followed patients with and without autism spectrum disorders aged between 6 and 30 years and first results revealed small effects regarding group differences. Further, cohort studies starting prenatally along with deep phenotyping are warranted to uncover the complex etiology of mental disorders.

CONCLUSION

Existing cohort studies on early mental development have shown specific focal points. To identify general and specific risk and resilience factors for psychiatric disorders and to model trajectories, there is a need for multimodal integration of data sets.

The correlation between family relationships and brain activity within the reward circuit in adolescents with Internet gaming disorder

Disrupted reward circuits and diminished behavioural control have been suggested as the pathophysiologies of Internet gaming disorder (IGD). Family functioning is thought to play an important role in reward-related control. We hypothesized that adolescents with IGD show disrupted patterns of family relationships, which are associated with brain activity within the reward circuit. 42 adolescents with IGD without comorbidities and 41 healthy controls were assessed for family function and psychological states using the Korean Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (K-WISC), Korean version of DuPaul's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Rating Scale (K-ARS), Young Internet Addiction Scale (YIAS), Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the relationship domain of the Family Environmental Scale (FES-R). Brain activity was assessed via resting-state fMRI. Adolescents with IGD showed increased K-ARS, BAI, and YIAS scores, but decreased FES-R and FES-cohesion subscale scores; YIAS scores were negatively correlated with FES-R scores. Brain connectivity from the cingulate to the striatum was decreased, positively correlated with FES-R scores, and negatively correlated with IGD severity. Adolescents with IGD showed disrupted family relationships, which was associated with the severity of the disorder, and dis-connectivity within the reward circuit.

Developmental trajectories to reduced activation of positive valence systems: A review of biological and environmental contributions

Reduced activation of positive valence systems (PVS), including blunted neural and physiological responses to pleasant stimuli and rewards, has been shown to prospectively predict the development of psychopathology. Yet, little is known about how reduced PVS activation emerges across development or what implications it has for prevention. We review genetic, temperament, parenting, and naturalistic and laboratory stress research on neural measures of PVS and outline developmentally-informed models of trajectories of PVS activation. PVS function is partly heritable and appears to reflect individual differences in early-emerging temperament traits. Although lab-induced stressors blunt PVS activation, effects of parenting and naturalistic stress on PVS are mixed and depend on the type of stressor, developmental timing, and interactions amongst risk factors. We propose that there may be multiple, dynamic developmental trajectories to reduced PVS activation in which combinations of genes, temperament, and exposure to severe, prolonged, or uncontrollable stress may exert direct and interactive effects on PVS function. Critically, these risk factors may alter PVS developmental trajectories and/or PVS sensitivity to proximal stressors. Distinct factors may converge such that PVS activation proceeds along a typical, accelerated, chronically low, or stress-reactive trajectory. Finally, we present directions for future research with translational implications.

Resilience and the brain: a key role for regulatory circuits linked to social stress and support

Given the high prevalence and burden of mental disorders, fostering the understanding of protective factors is an urgent issue for translational medicine in psychiatry. The concept of resilience describes individual and environmental protective factors against the backdrop of established adversities linked to mental illness. There is convergent evidence for a crucial role of direct as well as indirect adversity impacting the developing brain, with persisting effects until adulthood. Direct adversity may include childhood maltreatment and family adversity, while indirect social adversity can include factors such as urban living or ethnic minority status. Recently, research has begun to examine protective factors which may be able to buffer against or even reverse these influences. First evidence indicates that supportive social environments as well as trait-like individual protective characteristics might impact on similar neural substrates, thus strengthening the capacity to actively cope with stress exposure in order to counteract the detrimental effects evoked by social adversity. Here, we provide an overview of the current literature investigating the neural mechanisms of resilience with a putative social background, including studies on individual traits and genetic variation linked to resilience. We argue that the regulatory perigenual anterior cingulate cortex and limbic regions, including the amygdala and the ventral striatum, play a key role as crucial convergence sites of protective factors. Further, we discuss possible prevention and early intervention approaches targeting both the individual and the social environment to reduce the risk of psychiatric disorders and foster resilience.