Toward diversification of acute stressors and precision stress research: A stage 2 Registered Report validating a reward-salient stress task in emerging adults.

Stress is one of, if not the, most ubiquitously studied risk factor across the health sciences. This is unlikely to change given that the primary drivers of mortality and disability are chronic, stress-mediated illnesses (often highly comorbid with psychopathology). We argue that an important limitation of stress research is the consistency with which the Trier Social Stress Test is used when the research questions are not specific to social stress.

Longitudinal Measurement Invariance of the ASEBA Youth/Adult Self-Reports Across the Transition From Adolescence to Adulthood.

The ability to quantify within-person changes in mental health is central to the mission of clinical psychology. Typically, this is done using total or mean scores on symptom measures; however, this approach assumes that measures quantify the same construct, the same way, each time the measure is completed. Without this quality, termed longitudinal measurement invariance, an observed difference between timepoints might be partially attributable to changing measurement properties rather than changes in comparable symptom measurements.

How is inflammation biology truly associated with depression in patients with stable coronary heart disease?: Insights from the heart and Soul study.

Depression is known to be associated with inflammation among patients with established coronary heart disease (CHD), but it is unclear whether this is due to individual depression symptoms or to the broader construct of depression. We addressed this gap by using moderated non-linear factor analysis (MNLFA) to determine the extent that inflammation is associated with latent depression and/or individual symptoms in this patient group. We evaluated 1,024 outpatients with stable CHD from the baseline cross-sectional data of the Heart and Soul Study.

Characterizing the hierarchical depression phenotype in sexually diverse individuals.

Introduction: Sexual diverse individuals are at high risk for internalizing psychopathologies, such as depression. Understanding how symptom profiles of heterogeneous psychiatric disorders such as depression differ for sexually diverse vs. heterosexual individuals is thus critical to advance precision psychiatry and maximize our ability to effectively treat members of this population.

Chronic inflammation is associated with worsening working memory performance: Preliminary evidence from a diverse, longitudinal cohort of adolescents and young adults.

Many depressed individuals experience cognitive difficulties that persist when depression is in remission. Inflammation is hypothesized to play a role in cognitive dysfunction in depression; however, many aspects of this relationship are not well characterized. The current study examined whether inflammation is associated with specific cognitive deficits in individuals with a history of depression and with progressively worsening working memory over time.

Toward a dynamic immunopsychiatry.

In this article, we briefly clarify several points regarding immunopsychiatry. In particular, we argue that higher density data and a greater focus on temporal dynamics are both important, and that studies incorporating these features have the potential to greatly advance the field. We also respond to recent comments made on our original article on this topic (Moriarity and Slavich, 2023), including the contention that our perspective on immunopsychiatry is reductionistic.

Using Ecological Momentary Assessments to Study How Daily Fluctuations in Psychological States Impact Stress, Well-Being, and Health.

Despite great interest in how dynamic fluctuations in psychological states such as mood, social safety, energy, present-focused attention, and burnout impact stress, well-being, and health, most studies examining these constructs use retrospective assessments with relatively long time-lags. Here, we discuss how ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) address methodological issues associated with retrospective reports to help reveal dynamic associations between psychological states at small timescales that are often missed in stress and health research. In addition to helping researchers characterize daily and within-day fluctuations and temporal dynamics between different health-relevant processes, EMAs can elucidate mechanisms through which interventions reduce stress and enhance well-being.

Reward sensitivity and social rhythms during goal-striving: An ecological momentary assessment investigation of bipolar spectrum disorders.

Background: The reward/circadian rhythm model of bipolar spectrum disorders (BSDs) posits that when individuals with hypersensitive reward systems encounter reward-relevant events, they experience social and circadian rhythm disruption, leading to mood symptoms. The aim of the current study is to test an element of this theoretical model by investigating changes in social rhythms during and after an ecologically-valid reward-relevant event and evaluating whether the strength of these associations differ by trait reward sensitivity and BSD diagnostic group.

Methods: Young adults from three groups (low BSD risk with moderate reward sensitivity [MRew], high BSD risk with high reward sensitivity [HRew], and high reward sensitivity with BSD [HRew+BSD]) completed a reward responsiveness task and 20-day ecological momentary assessment study structured around a participant-specific goal occurring on day 15.

Multi-omics approaches in psychoneuroimmunology and health research: Conceptual considerations and methodological recommendations.

The field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has grown substantially in both relevance and prominence over the past 40 years. Notwithstanding its impressive trajectory, a majority of PNI studies are still based on a relatively small number of analytes. To advance this work, we suggest that PNI, and health research in general, can benefit greatly from adopting a multi-omics approach, which involves integrating data across multiple biological levels (e.

Incorporating causal inference perspectives into psychoneuroimmunology: A simulation study highlighting concerns about controlling for adiposity in immunopsychiatry.

Psychoneuroimmunology and immunopsychiatry are quickly approaching a critical point where the clinical translatability of their evidence base will be tested. To maximize chances for translational success, we believe researchers must adopt causal inference techniques that augment the causal relevance of estimates given theorized causal structures. To illustrate the utility of incorporating causal inference perspectives into psychoneuroimmunology, we applied directed acyclic graphs and a combination of empirical and simulated data to demonstrate the consequences of controlling for adiposity when testing the association between inflammation and depression under the plausible causal structure of increases in adipose tissue leading to greater inflammation that in turn promotes depression.

The future is dynamic: A call for intensive longitudinal data in immunopsychiatry.

The long-term value of immunopsychiatry will be based on its ability to translate basic science into effective clinical interventions. In this article, we discuss a key obstacle to achieving this important translational goal-namely, the preponderance of studies that are cross-sectional, or that have months-to-years long follow-up periods. Immunopsychiatric processes such as stress, inflammation, and depression symptoms are inherently dynamic and fluctuate over hours, days, and weeks.

A systematic review of associations between emotion regulation characteristics and inflammation.

Elevated inflammation is a risk factor for many psychiatric (e.g., depression) and somatic conditions (e.

Hierarchical Inflammatory Phenotypes of Depression: A Novel Approach Across Five Independent Samples and 27,730 Adults.

Background: Although characterizing associations between inflammation and depression may prove critical for informing theory, research, and treatment decisions, extant research has been limited by ignoring the possibility that inflammation may be simultaneously associated with depression broadly and with a subset of symptoms. This lack of direct comparison has hampered attempts to understand inflammatory phenotypes of depression and critically fails to consider that inflammation might be uniquely associated with both depression broadly and individual symptoms.

Methods: We used moderated nonlinear factor analysis in 5 NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) cohorts (N = 27,730, 51% female, mean age = 46 years).

Social Safety Theory: Conceptual foundation, underlying mechanisms, and future directions.

Classic theories of stress and health are largely based on assumptions regarding how different psychosocial stressors influence biological processes that, in turn, affect human health and behavior. Although theoretically rich, this work has yielded little consensus and led to numerous conceptual, measurement, and reproducibility issues. Social Safety Theory aims to address these issues by using the primary goal and regulatory logic of the human brain and immune system as the basis for specifying the social-environmental situations to which these systems should respond most strongly to maximize reproductive success and survival.

Inflammation and depression symptoms are most strongly associated for Black adults.

Although race/ethnicity is associated with substantial differences in risk for depression and other diseases of aging in the United States, the processes underlying these health disparities remain poorly understood. We addressed this issue by examining how levels of a robust marker of inflammatory activity, C-reactive protein (CRP), and depression symptoms varied across racial/ethnic groups. Additionally, we tested whether the inflammation-depression association differed across groups.

Protocol for project MIME: Motivation, inflammation, and Mood in Emerging Adults.

Background: Atypical inflammatory biology is gaining evidence as a risk factor for mood psychopathology; however, little work has attempted to integrate inflammation into extant psychosocial frameworks of risk. Recent work using secondary data analysis has investigated the possibility of an immunocognitive model of mood disorders, in which cognitive vulnerabilities (i.e.

Unconsidered issues of measurement noninvariance in biological psychiatry: A focus on biological phenotypes of psychopathology.

There is increasing appreciation that certain biological processes may not be equally related to all psychiatric symptoms in a given diagnostic category. Research on the biological phenotyping of psychopathology has begun examining the etiological and treatment implications of identified biotypes; however, little attention has been paid to a critical methodological implication of these results: measurement noninvariance. Measurement invariance is the ability of an instrument to measure the same construct, the same way, across different people, or across different time points for the same individual.

A physiometric investigation of inflammatory composites: Comparison of "a priori" aggregates, empirically-identified factors, and individual proteins.

Most research testing the association between inflammation and health outcomes (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, depression) has focused on individual proteins; however, some studies have used summed composites of inflammatory markers without first investigating dimensionality.

Building a replicable and clinically-impactful immunopsychiatry: Methods, phenotyping, and theory integration.

Immunopsychiatry is a subfield of psychoneuroimmunology that integrates immunological and psychopathological processes with promise for improving the classification, identification, and treatment of psychopathology. Using research on the relationship between inflammation and depression as a running example, this mini-review will discuss three areas of work that should be emphasized in future research to maximize the replicability and clinical impact of the field: 1) methodology with respect to planning data collection and statistical analyses with measurement properties and conceptually important sources of variance in mind, 2) characterizing inflammatory phenotypes of psychopathology, and 3) the integration of inflammatory processes into robust, extant psychosocial theoretical frameworks of psychopathology risk. Consistent, parallel growth in all three areas will ensure immunopsychiatry research is replicable, contributes to understanding of how (and for whom) the immune system is associated with psychiatric symptoms, and increases the flexibility and power of personalized treatment planning.

Goal-striving tendencies moderate the relationship between reward-related brain function and peripheral inflammation.

Inflammation is associated with both lower and higher activity in brain regions that process rewarding stimuli. How can both low and high sensitivity to rewards be associated with higher inflammation? We propose that one potential mechanism underlying these apparently conflicting findings pertains to how people pursue goals in their environment. This prediction is based on evidence that both an inability to disengage from unattainable goals and low interest in and pursuit of important life goals are associated with poor health outcomes, including inflammation.

Back to Basics: The Importance of Measurement Properties in Biological Psychiatry.

Biological psychiatry is a major funding priority for organizations that fund mental health research (e.g., National Institutes of Health).

Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations of Sex and Race with Inflammatory Biomarkers during Adolescence.

Chronic, systemic inflammation is implicated in physical and mental health; little is known about whether sex and racial differences detected in adulthood are observed during adolescence or about normative changes occurring during adolescence. This longitudinal, United States-based study examined four biomarkers of systemic inflammation [C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and IL-8) in 315 adolescents (51% female; 58% black; baseline age = 16.49 years (SD = 1.