Publications by authors named "Dashiell Sacks"

Children's neural responses to emotions may play a role in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. In a prospective longitudinal study of a community sample of = 464 mother-child dyads, we examined relations among maternal anxiety symptoms when children were infants and age 5 years, child neural responses to emotional faces (angry, fearful, happy) at age 3 years, and child internalizing symptoms at age 5 years. Path analyses tested whether amplitudes of event-related potential (ERP) components selected a priori (N290, Nc, P400) (a) mediated associations between maternal anxiety symptoms in infancy and child internalizing symptoms at 5 years and/or (b) moderated associations between maternal anxiety symptoms at 5 years and child internalizing symptoms at 5 years.

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Mental health disorders are associated with decreased quality of life, economic productivity loss, and increased mortality. The association between stressful experiences and psychopathology is well documented. However, studies are needed to understand the impact of timing of stressful events, types of traumatic experiences, and of family resilience on internalizing and externalizing symptoms in early childhood.

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Introduction: Nutrition, sleep and physical activity are termed the "big three" health enhancing behaviors (HEB) associated with psychological distress and wellbeing. This study sought to understand differential associations between an expanded group of HEB (nutrition, sleep, physical activity, mindfulness, social connectedness) and psychological distress/wellbeing in early adolescents.

Methods: Correlational and regression analyses were conducted in N=103 (51% females) adolescents (12.

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Background: Anxiety and depression are highly prevalent in youth and can cause significant distress and functional impairment. The presence of maternal anxiety and depression are well-established risk factors for child internalizing psychopathology, yet the responsible mechanisms linking the two remain unclear.

Methods: We examined the potential mediating and moderating roles of EEG frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) in the intergenerational transmission of internalizing symptoms in a longitudinal sample of = 323 mother-child dyads.

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Various methods have been developed to combine inference across multiple sets of results for unsupervised clustering, within the ensemble clustering literature. The approach of reporting results from one 'best' model out of several candidate clustering models generally ignores the uncertainty that arises from model selection, and results in inferences that are sensitive to the particular model and parameters chosen. Bayesian model averaging (BMA) is a popular approach for combining results across multiple models that offers some attractive benefits in this setting, including probabilistic interpretation of the combined cluster structure and quantification of model-based uncertainty.

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Cross-frequency coupling between the phase of slower oscillatory activity and the amplitude of faster oscillatory activity in the brain (phase-amplitude coupling; PAC), is a promising new biological marker for mental health. Prior research has demonstrated that PAC is associated with mental health. However, most research has focused on within-region theta-gamma PAC in adults.

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Adolescence is a critical period of social and neural development. Brain regions which process social information develop throughout adolescence as young people learn to navigate social environments. Studies investigating brain structural connectivity (indexed by white matter (WM) integrity), and social connectedness in adolescents have been limited until recently, with literature stemming mostly from adult samples, broad age ranges within adolescence or based on social network characteristics as opposed to social connectedness.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to understand how brain activity is related to cognitive function and mental health risks in adolescents by identifying subgroups based on EEG data.
  • A multi-stage analysis was conducted on EEG recordings from 59 12-year-olds, using clustering algorithms to find distinct patterns of brain activity and their relation to mental health and cognitive function.
  • Five main subgroups were discovered, revealing significant differences in psychological distress, sleep quality, and cognitive performance, suggesting that analyzing these EEG patterns could improve risk prediction for mental health issues in adolescents.
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We provided the dataset of brain connectome matrices, their similarities measures to self and others longitudinally, and Kessler's psychological distress scales (K10) including the response to each question. The dataset can be used to replicate the results of the manuscript titled "A longitudinal study of functional connectome uniqueness and its association with psychological distress in adolescence". The functional connectome (whole-brain and 13 networks) matrices were calculated from the resting-state functional MRIs (rs-fMRIs).

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Aims: Patients with depression and bipolar disorder have previously been shown to have impaired white matter (WM) integrity compared with healthy controls. This study aimed to investigate potential sex differences that may provide further insight into the pathophysiology of these highly debilitating mood disorders.

Methods: Participants aged 17 to 30 years (168 with depression [60% females], 107 with bipolar disorder [74% females], and 61 controls [64% females]) completed clinical assessment, self-report measures, and a neuropsychological assessment battery.

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Each human brain has a unique functional synchronisation pattern (functional connectome) analogous to a fingerprint that underpins brain functions and related behaviours. Here we examine functional connectome (whole-brain and 13 networks) maturation by measuring its uniqueness in adolescents who underwent brain scans longitudinally from 12 years of age every four months. The uniqueness of a functional connectome is defined as its ratio of self-similarity (from the same subject at a different time point) to the maximal similarity-to-others (from a given subject and any others at a different time point).

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Article Synopsis
  • Identifying biomarkers for mental disorders is crucial for improving early detection and treatment to reduce their overall impact.
  • Cross-frequency coupling (PAC) in brain oscillations shows promise for indicating cognitive processes and is linked to conditions like depression and schizophrenia.
  • Future longitudinal studies on PAC during adolescence could enhance our understanding of its relationship with mental health and inform new strategies for identification and treatment.
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The present study investigated differences in white matter (WM) integrity between 96 young people with affective and/or psychotic symptoms classified at an early stage of mental disorder (i.e. 'attenuated syndrome'; stage 1b), 85 young people classified at a more advanced stage of mental disorder (i.

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