Maternal Gut Microbiome-Mediated Epigenetic Modifications in Cognitive Development and Impairments: A New Frontier for Therapeutic Innovation.

Cognitive impairment in various mental illnesses, particularly neuropsychiatric disorders, has adverse functional and clinical consequences. While genetic mutations and epigenetic dysregulations of several genes during embryonic and adult periods are linked to cognitive impairment in mental disorders, the composition and diversity of resident bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract-shaped by environmental factors-also influence the brain epigenome, affecting behavior and cognitive functions. Accordingly, many recent studies have provided evidence that human gut microbiota may offer a potential avenue for improving cognitive deficits.

Wisdom, Resilience, and Well-Being in Later Life.

As the numbers of older adults continue to increase globally, the need for facilitating healthy aging has become critical. While a physically healthy lifestyle, including exercise and diet, is important, recent research has highlighted a major impact of psychosocial determinants of health, such as resilience, wisdom, positive social connections, and mental well-being, on whole health. This article focuses on keeping the mind and brain healthy with psychosocially active aging.

Loneliness Trajectories in U.S. Military Veterans: A 3-Year Longitudinal Study of Risk and Protective Factors.

Objectives: Loneliness is a significant public health concern associated with adverse mental and physical health outcomes in older adults. This study examined the nature and correlates of predominant loneliness trajectories in a nationally representative sample of older U.S.

Successful Aging in US Veterans with Mental Disorders: Results From the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and correlates of successful aging in US veterans who screened positive for current major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and/or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Methods: In a nationally representative sample of 475 US military veterans (mean age=58.3, SD=14.

A New Paradigm for High-dimensional Data: Distance-Based Semiparametric Feature Aggregation Framework via Between-Subject Attributes.

This article proposes a distance-based framework incentivized by the paradigm shift towards feature aggregation for high-dimensional data, which does not rely on the sparse-feature assumption or the permutation-based inference. Focusing on distance-based outcomes that preserve information without truncating any features, a class of semiparametric regression has been developed, which encapsulates multiple sources of high-dimensional variables using pairwise outcomes of between-subject attributes. Further, we propose a strategy to address the interlocking correlations among pairs via the U-statistics-based estimating equations (UGEE), which correspond to their unique efficient influence function (EIF).

Aspects of Area Deprivation Index in Relation to Hippocampal Volume Among Children.

Importance: Area deprivation index (ADI) has been shown to be associated with reduced hippocampal volume (HV) among youths. The social environment may interact with the association between ADI and HV.

Objective: To investigate which aspects of ADI are uniquely associated with bilateral HV and whether school and family environments have moderating interactions in associations between ADI and HV.

Well-being domains in U.S. military veterans: identifying modifiable factors to promote whole health.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is actively transitioning away from a disease-centric model of healthcare to one that prioritizes disease prevention and the promotion of overall health and well-being.

The influence of economic policies on social environments and mental health.

Despite increased advocacy and investments in mental health systems globally, there has been limited progress in reducing mental disorder prevalence. In this paper, we argue that meaningful advancements in population mental health necessitate addressing the fundamental sources of shared distress. Using a systems perspective, economic structures and policies are identified as the potential cause of causes of mental ill-health.

The Brain Economy: Advancing Brain Science to Better Understand the Modern Economy.

The coming years are likely to be turbulent due to a myriad of factors or polycrisis, including an escalation in climate extremes, emerging public health threats, weak productivity, increases in global economic instability and further weakening in the integrity of global democracy. These formidable challenges are not exogenous to the economy but are in some cases generated by the system itself. They can be overcome, but only with far-reaching changes to global economics.

Life-Course Brain Health as a Determinant of Late-Life Mental Health: American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry Expert Panel Recommendations.

This position statement of the Expert Panel on Brain Health of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) emphasizes the critical role of life course brain health in shaping mental well-being during the later stages of life. Evidence posits that maintaining optimal brain health earlier in life is crucial for preventing and managing brain aging-related disorders such as dementia/cognitive decline, depression, stroke, and anxiety. We advocate for a holistic approach that integrates medical, psychological, and social frameworks with culturally tailored interventions across the lifespan to promote brain health and overall mental well-being in aging adults across all communities.

Executive functioning trajectories and their prospective association with inflammatory biomarkers in schizophrenia and non-psychiatric comparison participants.

Background And Hypothesis: Cognitive change in people with schizophrenia (PwS) is challenging to assess, but important to understand. Previous studies with limited age ranges and follow-up were subject to practice effects. Controlling for practice effects in a well-established cohort, we examined executive functioning trajectories and their association with inflammatory biomarkers, hypothesizing that PwS will have worsening executive functioning over time compared to non-psychiatric comparison participants (NCs), predicted by higher baseline inflammation with a stronger relationship in PwS than NCs.

Combined effects of loneliness and inflammation on depression in people with HIV.

Objective: Loneliness is prevalent in people with HIV (PWH) and associated with adverse health-related consequences, including depression. Chronic inflammation has been linked to depression in PWH, though its association with loneliness is less well established. Simultaneous examination of inflammation, loneliness and depression is needed to clarify these relationships.

Reactivity of Health-Related Quality of Life to Perceived Stress: The Buffering Role of Psychosocial Resources in a Longitudinal Study of Adults with and Without HIV.

People with HIV now have increased longevity; however, their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) still lags significantly compared to people without HIV. Perceived stress negatively impacts HRQoL, whereas psychosocial resources are linked to better HRQoL. This longitudinal analysis aims to explore the buffering role of psychosocial resources on the relationship between HRQoL and perceived stress.

Impact of educational attainment on time to cognitive decline among marginalized older adults: Cohort study of 20,311 adults.

Background: The effect of years of education on the maintenance of healthy cognitive functioning may differ by race and ethnicity given historical and ongoing inequities in educational quality.

Methods: We examined 20,311 Black, Latinx, and White adults aged 51-100 from the Health and Retirement Study (2008-2016). Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-27 data was used to measure cognitive functioning.