A data-driven latent variable approach to validating the research domain criteria framework.

Despite the widespread use of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework in psychiatry and neuroscience, recent studies suggest that the RDoC is insufficiently specific or excessively broad relative to the underlying brain circuitry it seeks to elucidate. To address these concerns, we employ a latent variable approach using bifactor analysis. We examine 84 whole-brain task-based fMRI (tfMRI) activation maps from 19 studies with 6192 participants.

Stress reactivity moderates the association between early experiences of unpredictability and emotional problems in adolescents.

Researchers have documented that exposure to different kinds of psychosocial stressors can lead to emotional difficulties and, further, that heightened reactivity to stress can moderate these associations. Recently, investigators have distinguished among threat, deprivation, and unpredictability as different dimensions of early life stress (ELS). It is not clear, however, whether reactivity in specific stress response systems functions as a diathesis to lead to emotional difficulties following exposure to these dimensions of ELS.

Exposure to diesel-related particulate matter, cortisol stress responsivity, and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

Exposure to air pollution is associated with higher risk for psychopathology; however, the mechanisms underlying this association are not clear. Dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in response to stress has been implicated in depression. Here, we estimated annual exposure to particulate matter (PM) from diesel emissions in 170 9- to 15-year-old adolescents (56 % female) using their residential addresses and data from nearby monitoring sites.