The Long-Term Physical-Psychiatric Comorbidities Related to Childhood Exposure to 9/11 Trauma.

Extensive research has explored the enduring effects of childhood trauma on health, revealing its potential to produce chronic health problems. Despite findings that adults exposed to 9/11 suffer from enduring concurrent psychiatric and physical illnesses, investigations into the long-term physical-psychiatric comorbidities experienced by children and adolescents affected by the 9/11 trauma remain limited. In our study, we examined individuals directly exposed to 9/11 as children (N = 844 high exposure and N = 104 low exposed) and compared them to a matched unexposed, control group (N = 491).

Characteristics of Adolescents with and without a Family History of Substance Use Disorder from a Minority Cohort.

Family history (FH+) of substance use disorder (SUD) is an established risk factor for offspring SUD. The extent to which offspring psychological traits or the family environment, each of which may be relevant to familial transmission of SUD risk, vary by FH+ in socioeconomically disadvantaged populations is less clear. We compared the family/social environmental and psychological characteristics of 73 FH+ and 69 FH- youth ages 12-16, from a study of parental criminal justice system involvement in a primarily low-income, minority urban population.

Sex differences in stress responses among underrepresented minority adolescents at risk for substance use disorder.

Adolescence is a period of dramatic physiological changes preparing individuals to face future challenges. Prolonged exposure to stressors during childhood can result in dysregulated stress systems which alter normative physiological progression, leading to exacerbated risk for developing psychiatric disorders. Parental substance use disorder (SUD) is considered a significant childhood stressor which increases risk for the offspring to develop SUD.

Connectivity based Real-Time fMRI Neurofeedback Training in Youth with a History of Major Depressive Disorder.

Background: Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) has proven to be a powerful technique to help subjects to gauge and enhance emotional control. Traditionally, rtfMRI-nf has focused on emotional regulation through self-regulation of amygdala. Recently, rtfMRI studies have observed that regulation of a target brain region is accompanied by connectivity changes beyond the target region.

Changes in appetite during quarantine and their association with pre-COVID-19 mental and physical health.

Background: The COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in high levels of fear, anxiety, and stress. People with pre-existing physical and mental health conditions may have been more affected by the sudden changes in daily habits during the initial months of global quarantine imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: We designed the Quarantine, Anxiety, and Diet (QUAD) Survey to investigate the effect of pre-existing health conditions on the relationship of COVID-19 stress and food behavior.

Shapes of subcortical structures in adolescents with and without familial history of substance use disorder.

It has been suggested that intergenerational transmission of risk for substance use disorder (SUD) manifests in the brain anatomy of substance naïve adolescents. While volume and shapes of subcortical structures (SSS) have been shown to be heritable, these structures, especially the pallidum, putamen, nucleus accumbens, and hippocampus, have also been associated with substance use disorders. However, it is not clear if those anatomical differences precede substance use or are the result of that use.

White matter integrity and functional connectivity in adolescents with a parental history of substance use disorder.

A family history (FH+) of substance use disorder (SUD) increases an adolescent's risk for substance use initiation and progression. Greater impulsivity and reward seeking behavior is known to be associated with such risk. At the neurological level, dysfunction of cortico-striatal and cortico-limbic pathways have been proposed as contributors to the increased SUD risk in adolescents with FH+.

Delay discounting and neurocognitive correlates among inner city adolescents with and without family history of substance use disorder.

Adolescents with a family history (FH+) of substance use disorder (SUD) are at a greater risk for SUD, suggested to be partly due to the transmission of behavioral impulsivity. We used a delay discounting task to compare impulsivity in decision-making and its associated brain functioning among FH+ and FH - minority adolescents. Participants chose between Smaller Sooner (SS) and Larger Later (LL) rewards.

Parental Occupational Exposure is Associated With Their Children's Psychopathology: A Study of Families of Israeli First Responders.

Objective: To examine the association between parental occupational exposure to traumatic events and their children's mental health in families of First Responders (FRs), a neglected area of research.

Methods: In 208 families of Israeli FRs, children's symptoms and comorbidity patterns of seven psychiatric disorders were regressed on parental work-related variables, controlling for relevant covariates.

Results: Having a father working as a FR and higher paternal exposure were associated with a greater number of separation anxiety and posttraumatic stress symptoms, respectively.

Negative blood oxygen level dependent signals during speech comprehension.

Speech comprehension studies have generally focused on the isolation and function of regions with positive blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals with respect to a resting baseline. Although regions with negative BOLD signals in comparison to a resting baseline have been reported in language-related tasks, their relationship to regions of positive signals is not fully appreciated. Based on the emerging notion that the negative signals may represent an active function in language tasks, the authors test the hypothesis that negative BOLD signals during receptive language are more associated with comprehension than content-free versions of the same stimuli.

Behavioral assessment in patients with disorders of consciousness: gold standard or fool's gold?

In the absence of "hard" neurophysiologic markers, the burden of proof for establishing conscious awareness in individuals who sustain severe brain injury lies in behavioral assessment. Because behavior represents indirect evidence of consciousness, reliance on behavioral markers presents significant challenges and may lead to misdiagnosis. Detection of conscious awareness is confounded by numerous factors including fluctuations in arousal level, difficulty differentiating reflexive or involuntary movement from intentional behavior, underlying sensory and motor impairments, and medication side effects.

The dynamics of deductive reasoning: an fMRI investigation.

Although the basis for deductive reasoning has been a traditional focus of philosophical discussion, the neural correlates and mechanisms that underlie deductive reasoning have only recently become the focus of scientific investigation. In syllogistic deductive reasoning information presented in two related sequential premises leads to a subsequent conclusion. While previous imaging studies have identified frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital complexes that are activated during these reasoning events, there are substantive differences among the findings with respect to the specific regions engaged in reasoning and the contribution of language areas.

A case of locked-in syndrome complicated by central deafness.

Background: A 53-year-old male with a history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and factor V deficiency presented to an emergency room with progressively increasing headache, slurred speech, and left upper extremity weakness. Over the previous 3 months, he had been receiving warfarin for prophylaxis of deep venous thrombosis following knee surgery. After presentation and an initial period of coma, he became tetraplegic and anarthric, requiring intubation and ventilatory assistance.

Residual cerebral activity and behavioural fragments can remain in the persistently vegetative brain.

This report identifies evidence of partially functional cerebral regions in catastrophically injured brains. To study five patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) with different behavioural features, we employed [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET), MRI and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses to sensory stimulation. Each patient's brain expressed a unique metabolic pattern.