Biological, environmental, and psychological stress and the human gut microbiome in healthy adults.

Emerging research suggests that the gut microbiome plays a crucial role in stress. We assess stress-microbiome associations in two samples of healthy adults across three stress domains (perceived stress, stressful life events, and biological stress /Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia; RSA). Study 1 (n = 62; mean-age = 37.

Physiological and emotional assessment of college students using wearable and mobile devices during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown: An intensive, longitudinal dataset.

This dataset was collected from university students before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Southern California. Data collection happened continuously for the average of 7.8 months (=3.

The Effect of COVID-19 Public Health Measures on Mental Health in California.

The goal of this study was to examine the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, including public health measures (mitigation and containment efforts), on new onset mental health diagnoses by age group. This study was a longitudinal retrospective cohort study. Data on new mental health diagnoses were extracted from the University of California Health System Electronic Health Records (EHR) that contained five academic health centers in California.

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Savoring impacts parents' emotions and parent-child relationship quality. Using data from a randomized controlled trial (N = 164 mothers of 18-27-month-olds, 37 interveners) conducted with a community sample in the United States, this study examined predictors of fidelity and treatment outcomes across two savoring preventative interventions (relational savoring and personal savoring). Treatment outcome indicators were selected from a battery administered immediately post-intervention (maternal closeness to child) and at a 3-month follow-up (maternal sensitivity, reflective functioning).

Objective monitoring of loneliness levels using smart devices: A multi-device approach for mental health applications.

Loneliness is linked to wide ranging physical and mental health problems, including increased rates of mortality. Understanding how loneliness manifests is important for targeted public health treatment and intervention. With advances in mobile sending and wearable technologies, it is possible to collect data on human phenomena in a continuous and uninterrupted way.

The intersection between alexithymia, testosterone reactivity, and coparenting in fathers predicts child's prosocial behavior.

The development of prosocial skills in children is a key predictor of long-term social, cognitive, and emotional functioning. However, the role of fathers' psychological characteristics in fostering prosocial development, including during the prenatal period, and the mechanisms underlying their influence, remain relatively unexplored. This study aimed to examine whether a higher tendency of alexithymia, a difficulty to identify and verbalize emotions, in expectant fathers predicts prosocial behavior of two-year-old toddlers through the quality of coparenting and whether greater testosterone increase during a stressful parenting task moderates this indirect effect.

Culturally adapting relational savoring: A therapeutic approach to improve relationship quality.

Relational savoring (RS) is a brief, strengths-based approach to heightening attentional focus to moments of positive connectedness within relationships. RS can be administered preventatively or within an intervention context when a therapist aspires to foster more optimal relational functioning. Typically administered within a one-on-one therapy setting, RS has demonstrated efficacy in enhancing intra- and interpersonal outcomes.

Undoing mothers' avoidant coping with children's negative emotion: A randomized controlled trial of relational savoring.

Some mothers report using avoidant coping strategies (minimizing, punishing) in response to their young children's negative emotion, an aspect of insensitive parenting that places children at risk for emotional or behavioral dysregulation (Fabes et al., 2001) and insecure attachment (De Wolff & van Ijzendoorn, 1997). In prior work, an in-home attachment-based relational savoring (RS) intervention, administered over a month's time, positively affected maternal emotion and sensitive behavior with young children (Borelli et al.

A Relationship-Based Resilience Program for Promotores: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Waitlist Trial.

Background: Community service providers (CSPs) play an integral role in the health care of low-income Hispanic or Latinx (HL) communities. CSPs have high-stress frontline jobs and share the high-risk demographics of their communities. Relational savoring (RS) has been associated with lower cardiovascular reactivity and psychosocial benefits, with particular promise among HL participants.

Mother-child dyadic responses to children facing challenges: An examination across ethnicities.

The current study (a) examined ethnic differences in mothers' and children's responses to children's performance in a challenging task, (b) tested the associations among children's desire for assistance, maternal control, and children's emotional responses to the challenge, and (c) explored whether these associations held across three ethnicities-Asian Americans (AA), Latinx Americans (LA), and European Americans (EA). Results showed that children's emotional arousal significantly increased and emotional valence became significantly less positive over the course of children experiencing repeated challenges in front of their mothers. In terms of ethnic differences, LA mothers exhibited more control than EA mothers, but LA children responded less negatively to the challenging task than EA children.

Post-traumatic-stress in the context of childhood maltreatment: pathways from attachment through mentalizing during the transition to parenthood.

Introduction: This study aimed to clarify the role of mentalizing in pathways from attachment to Post Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) in survivors of childhood maltreatment (CM). We focused on the transition to parenting, a critical period for reworking parenting representations to reduce intergenerational maltreatment cycles.

Method: Study participants included 100 pregnant CM survivors.

COVID-19 and the Latinx Community: "Promotoras Represent a Community in Pain".

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Latinx community, leading to heightened economic instability and increased mortality/morbidity. Frontline community health workers () have played an integral role in serving low-income Latinx immigrant communities, disseminating health information to this vulnerable community while also facing heightened risks to their own health and wellbeing. This study explores the impact of the pandemic on Latinx communities and the promotoras that serve them, examining how the stresses and inequities the pandemic wrought might be mitigated.

Mentalization in Typically and Atypically Developing Iranian Children and Its Associations with Age, Sex, and Externalizing/Internalizing Symptoms.

Mentalization refers to the ability to understand the mental states of oneself and those of others that motivate action and behavior. Mentalization has generally been linked to adaptive development and healthy functioning whereas diminished mentalization has been associated with maladaptive development and psychopathology. The vast majority of research on mentalization and developmental trajectories, however, is based on Western countries.

Multidimensional Discrimination Distress, Controlling Parenting, and Parent-Adolescent Attachment Relationships: Racial/Ethnic Differences.

Parents have multifaceted identities, across dimensions like race/ethnicity, gender, and class, which shape their experience of discrimination. However, little is known about how distress from such multidimensional discrimination influences parenting behavior and parent-adolescent relationships. We tested associations between mothers' multidimensional discrimination distress and parental control (overcontrol and conditional regard) and daughters' attachment, among 82 African American (AA), Hispanic/Latina (HL), and non-Hispanic White (NHW) mother-adolescent daughter dyads in the United States.

The Effect of COVID-19 Public Health Measures On Mental Health in California.

California was the first state to implement statewide public health measures, including lockdown and curfews, to mitigate transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The implementation of these public health measures may have had unintended consequences related to mental health for persons in California. This study is a retrospective review of electronic health records of patients who sought care in the University of California Health System to examine changes in mental health status during the pandemic.

Objective Prediction of Next-Day's Affect Using Multimodal Physiological and Behavioral Data: Algorithm Development and Validation Study.

Background: Affective states are important aspects of healthy functioning; as such, monitoring and understanding affect is necessary for the assessment and treatment of mood-based disorders. Recent advancements in wearable technologies have increased the use of such tools in detecting and accurately estimating mental states (eg, affect, mood, and stress), offering comprehensive and continuous monitoring of individuals over time.

Objective: Previous attempts to model an individual's mental state relied on subjective measurements or the inclusion of only a few objective monitoring modalities (eg, smartphones).

Adaptation of an evidence-based parenting intervention for integration into maternal-child home-visiting programs: Challenges and solutions.

Background: The objective of this study was to assess potential challenges, prioritize adaptations, and develop an implementation and research approach to integrate and study a parenting intervention for mothers in recovery from substance use disorders in community-based home-visiting programs.

Method: An explanatory mixed-methods design, guided by process mapping with Failure Modes and Effects Analysis tools, and an Advisory Panel of 15 community members, identified potential implementation challenges and recommended solutions for the proposed intervention within five pre-specified domains. Thematic content analysis identified themes from detailed field notes.

Mothering from the Inside Out: Results of a community-based randomized efficacy trial testing a mentalization-based parenting intervention for mothers with addictions.

Mothering from the Inside Out (MIO) is a mentalization-based parenting intervention developed to address challenges common among mothers experiencing substance use disorders (SUDs) and previously deemed effective when delivered by research clinicians. This randomized clinical trial was designed to test the efficacy of MIO when delivered by community-based addiction counselors in Connecticut, USA. Ninety-four mothers [M(SD)age = 31.

Enhancing parental reflective functioning: A special tribute to the life and work of Nancy E. Suchman, PhD.

Nancy E. Suchman's contributions to the fields of infant mental health, maternal reflective functioning, and attachment-based intervention will have long-lasting impacts. In particular, through the development and dissemination of her intervention program, Mothering from the Inside Out (MIO), she innovated a way of working with mothers with substance use disorders that represented a paradigm shift within the field of addiction.

The moderating role of attachment in the association between physiological synchrony in married couples and supportive behavior in the transition to parenthood.

Despite supportive behaviors playing a central role in intimate relationships, the extent to which physiological and psychological factors are involved in the quality of the observed spousal support, remains largely unknown. From a physiological stance, cardiac synchrony has been identified as an important component involved in dyadic interpersonal interactions. This study aims to examine whether individual differences in attachment determine, at least to some extent, whether cardiac synchrony enhances or impedes the quality of the observed spousal support.

Savoring interventions for mothers of young children: Mechanisms linking relational savoring and personal savoring to reflective functioning.

Parenting interventions can improve parenting outcomes, with widespread implications for children's developmental trajectories. Relational savoring (RS) is a brief attachment-based intervention with high potential for dissemination. Here we examine data from a recent intervention trial in order to isolate the mechanisms by which savoring predicts reflective functioning (RF) at treatment follow-up through an examination of the content of savoring sessions (specificity, positivity, connectedness, safe haven/secure base, self-focus, child-focus).

The mother-daughter Shared Agency in Weight Management Scale (SAWMS): development, validation, and implications for body dissatisfaction.

Background: Much research suggests that mothers play an important role in shaping daughters' body image, yet less is known about how mother-daughter relationship dynamics in weight management affect daughters' body dissatisfaction. The current paper described the development and validation of the mother-daughter Shared Agency in Weight Management Scale (SAWMS) and examined its associations with daughter's body dissatisfaction.

Methods: In Study 1 (N = 676 college students), we explored the factor structure of the mother-daughter SAWMS and identified three processes (control, autonomy support, and collaboration) whereby mothers work with daughters in weight management.