Connecting through clicks: A longitudinal examination of internet use and depressive symptoms among middle- and old-aged Chinese

AIM

While prior investigations into the influence of internet engagement on depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older individuals have largely been favorable, concerns persist. Some research posits that internet use may detract from direct interpersonal interactions, elevating depression risks. Here, we scrutinize these contrasting views, endeavoring to delineate the relationship between internet use, social participation, and the ensuing depressive manifestations.

METHODS

We analyzed nationally representative data from three consecutive waves (2013-T1, 2015-T2, 2018-T3) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study survey. Measures of social participation encompassed formal social participation (i.e., attending clubs for mahjong, chess, sports, or other activities; participation in community organizations, volunteering, or enrolling in training courses) and informal social participation (i.e., interactions with friends or extending assistance to relatives, friends, or neighbors). Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate a focused longitudinal mediation model.

RESULTS

Our dataset comprised 13 671 individuals aged 45 years or older. Baseline internet use was associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms by T3 (c '  = -0.143, SE = 0.055). The longitudinal association between internet use and the alleviation of depressive symptoms was partially mediated by enhanced formal social participation (indirect effecta 1 × b 1  = -0.023, SE = 0.011).

CONCLUSIONS

For developing nations such as China, grappling with a rapidly aging demographic and scarce mental health infrastructure, pioneering initiatives that merge digital and formal social participation might be a valuable component in a multifaceted approach to alleviate late-life depression. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2024; 24: 218-224.

Trajectories of cortical structures associated with stress across adolescence: a bivariate latent change score approach

BACKGROUND

Stress exposure in childhood and adolescence has been linked to reductions in cortical structures and cognitive functioning. However, to date, most of these studies have been cross-sectional, limiting the ability to make long-term inferences, given that most cortical structures continue to develop through adolescence.

METHODS

Here, we used a subset of the IMAGEN population cohort sample (N = 502; assessment ages: 14, 19, and 22 years; mean age: 21.945 years; SD = 0.610) to understand longitudinally the long-term interrelations between stress, cortical development, and cognitive functioning. To these ends, we first used a latent change score model to examine four bivariate relations - assessing individual differences in change in the relations between adolescent stress exposure and volume, surface area, and cortical thickness of cortical structures, as well as cognitive outcomes. Second, we probed for indirect neurocognitive effects linking stress to cortical brain structures and cognitive functions using rich longitudinal mediation modeling.

RESULTS

Latent change score modeling showed that greater baseline adolescence stress at age 14 predicted a small reduction in the right anterior cingulate volume (Std. β = -.327, p = .042, 95% CI [-0.643, -0.012]) and right anterior cingulate surface area (Std. β = -.274, p = .038, 95% CI [-0.533, -0.015]) across ages 14-22. These effects were very modest in nature and became nonsignificant after correcting for multiple comparisons. Our longitudinal analyses found no evidence of indirect effects in the two neurocognitive pathways linking adolescent stress to brain and cognitive outcomes.

CONCLUSION

Findings shed light on the impact of stress on brain reductions, particularly in the prefrontal cortex that have consistently been implicated in the previous cross-sectional studies. However, the magnitude of effects observed in our study is smaller than that has been reported in past cross-sectional work. This suggests that the potential impact of stress during adolescence on brain structures may likely be more modest than previously noted.

Functional connectome mediates the association between sleep disturbance and mental health in preadolescence: A longitudinal mediation study

Sleep disturbance is known to be associated with various mental disorders and often precedes the onset of mental disorders in youth. Given the increasingly acknowledged bidirectional influence between sleep disturbance and mental disorders, we aim to identify a shared neural mechanism that underlies sleep disturbance and mental disorders in preadolescents. We analyzed a dataset of 9,350 9–10 year‐old children, among whom 8,845 had 1‐year follow‐up data, from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Linear mixed‐effects models, mediation analysis, and longitudinal mediation analysis were used to investigate the relationship between sleep disturbance, mental disorders, and resting‐state network connectivity. Out of 186 unique connectivities, the effect of total sleep disturbance (TSP, from Sleep Disturbance Scale) and mental problems (MP, from Child Behavior Checklist) converged in the default mode network (DMN) and the dorsal attention network (DAN). Within‐ and between‐network connectivities (DMN‐DAN, DMN‐DMN, DAN‐DAN) mediated the relationship between baseline TSD and MP at 1‐year follow‐up and the relationship between baseline MP and TSD at 1‐year follow‐up. The pathway model in which sleep disturbance and mental problems affect each other through two anticorrelated brain networks (DMN and DAN) suggests a common neural mechanism between them. Longitudinally, a less segregated DMN and DAN is associated with negative outcomes on mental well‐being and sleep disturbance a year later. These findings have important implications for the design of prevention and neurofeedback intervention for mental disorders and sleep problems.

Systematically Defined Informative Priors in Bayesian Estimation: An Empirical Application on the Transmission of Internalizing Symptoms Through Mother-Adolescent Interaction Behavior

BACKGROUND

Bayesian estimation with informative priors permits updating previous findings with new data, thus generating cumulative knowledge. To reduce subjectivity in the process, the present study emphasizes how to systematically weigh and specify informative priors and highlights the use of different aggregation methods using an empirical example that examined whether observed mother-adolescent positive and negative interaction behavior mediate the associations between maternal and adolescent internalizing symptoms across early to mid-adolescence in a 3-year longitudinal multi-method design.

METHODS

The sample consisted of 102 mother-adolescent dyads (39.2% girls, M age T1 = 13.0). Mothers and adolescents reported on their internalizing symptoms and their interaction behaviors were observed during a conflict task. We systematically searched for previous studies and used an expert-informed weighting system to account for their relevance. Subsequently, we aggregated the (power) priors using three methods: linear pooling, logarithmic pooling, and fitting a normal distribution to the linear pool by means of maximum likelihood estimation. We compared the impact of the three differently specified informative priors and default priors on the prior predictive distribution, shrinkage, and the posterior estimates.

RESULTS

The prior predictive distributions for the three informative priors were quite similar and centered around the observed data mean. The shrinkage results showed that the logarithmic pooled priors were least affected by the data. Most posterior estimates were similar across the different priors. Some previous studies contained extremely specific information, resulting in bimodal posterior distributions for the analyses with linear pooled prior distributions. The posteriors following the fitted normal priors and default priors were very similar. Overall, we found that maternal, but not adolescent, internalizing symptoms predicted subsequent mother-adolescent interaction behavior, whereas negative interaction behavior seemed to predict subsequent internalizing symptoms. Evidence regarding mediation effects remained limited.

CONCLUSION

A systematic search for previous information and an expert-built weighting system contribute to a clear specification of power priors. How information from multiple previous studies should be included in the prior depends on theoretical considerations (e.g., the prior is an updated Bayesian distribution), and may also be affected by pragmatic considerations regarding the impact of the previous results at hand (e.g., extremely specific previous results).