Background: Disruptive behavior in children and adolescents can manifest as reactive aggression and proactive aggression and is modulated by callous-unemotional traits and other comorbidities. Neural correlates of these aggression dimensions or subtypes and comorbid symptoms remain largely unknown. This multi-center study investigated the relationship between resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) and aggression subtypes considering comorbidities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUntreated mental health problems continue from childhood and adolescence into adulthood, meaning accessible early intervention is essential to reduce long-term negative outcomes. However, there is often a reluctance to engage in mental health treatment, with considerable evidence that young men are less likely to seek help than young women. This original research study aimed to explore four areas of interest around facilitating engagement of adolescent boys to a stress workshop intervention for adolescents in U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFYouth with disruptive behavior showing high callous-unemotional (CU) traits and proactive aggression are often assumed to exhibit distinct impairments in emotion recognition from those showing mainly reactive aggression. Yet, reactive and proactive aggression and CU traits may co-occur to varying degrees across individuals. We aimed to investigate emotion recognition in more homogeneous clusters based on these three dimensions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommon mental disorders affect high proportions of university students. This systematic review aims to summarize the barriers and facilitators to help-seeking for depression and anxiety among university students and provide evidence to improve mental health services. EMBASE, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO were searched for eligible papers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMJ Open
December 2021
Purpose: The presence of distinct child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and adult mental health services (AMHS) impacts continuity of mental health treatment for young people. However, we do not know the extent of discontinuity of care in Europe nor the effects of discontinuity on the mental health of young people. Current research is limited, as the majority of existing studies are retrospective, based on small samples or used non-standardised information from medical records.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReversal learning deficits following reward and punishment processing are observed across disruptive behaviors (DB) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and have been associated with callous-unemotional (CU) traits. However, it remains unknown to what extent these altered reinforcement sensitivities are linked to the co-occurrence of oppositional traits, ADHD symptoms, and CU traits. Reward and punishment sensitivity and perseverative behavior were therefore derived from a probabilistic reversal learning task to investigate reinforcement sensitivity in participants with DB (n=183, ODD=62, CD=10, combined=57, age-range 8-18), ADHD (n=144, age-range 11-28), and controls (n=191, age-range 8-26).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDisruptive behavior during childhood and adolescence is heterogeneous and associated with several psychiatric disorders. The identification of more homogeneous subgroups might help identify different underlying pathways and tailor treatment strategies. Children and adolescents (aged 8-18) with disruptive behaviors (N = 121) and healthy controls (N = 100) were included in a European multi-center cognition and brain imaging study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is increasing evidence for altered brain resting state functional connectivity in adolescents with disruptive behavior. While a considerable body of behavioral research points to differences between reactive and proactive aggression, it remains unknown whether these two subtypes have dissociable effects on connectivity. Additionally, callous-unemotional traits are important specifiers in subtyping aggressive behavior along the affective dimension.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaladaptive aggression, as present in conduct disorder (CD) and, to a lesser extent, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), has been associated with structural alterations in various brain regions, such as ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), amygdala, insula and ventral striatum. Although aggression can be subdivided into reactive and proactive subtypes, no neuroimaging studies have yet investigated if any structural brain alterations are associated with either of the subtypes specifically. Here we investigated associations between aggression subtypes, CU traits and ADHD symptoms in predefined regions of interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Brain imaging studies have shown altered amygdala activity during emotion processing in children and adolescents with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) compared to typically developing children and adolescents (TD). Here we aimed to assess whether aggression-related subtypes (reactive and proactive aggression) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits predicted variation in amygdala activity and skin conductance (SC) response during emotion processing.
Methods: We included 177 participants (n = 108 cases with disruptive behaviour and/or ODD/CD and n = 69 TD), aged 8-18 years, across nine sites in Europe, as part of the EU Aggressotype and MATRICS projects.
BMJ Open
June 2020
Objective: Young people moving from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult mental health services (AMHS) are faced with significant challenges. To improve this state of affairs, there needs to be a recognition of the problem and initiatives and an urgent requirement for appropriate tools for measuring readiness and outcomes at the transfer boundary (16-18 years of age in Europe). The objective of this study was to develop and validate the Transition Readiness and Appropriateness Measure (TRAM) for assessing a young person's readiness for transition, and their outcomes at the transfer boundary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExecutive functioning and emotion recognition may be impaired in disruptive youth, yet findings in oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) are inconsistent. We examined these functions related to ODD and CD, accounting for comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and internalising symptoms. We compared executive functioning (visual working memory, visual attention, inhibitory control) and emotion recognition between youth (8-18 years old, 123 boys, 55 girls) with ODD ( = 44) or CD (with/without ODD, = 48), and healthy controls ( = 86).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompared to women, men are less likely to seek help for mental health difficulties. Despite considerable interest, a paucity in evidence-based solutions remains to solve this problem. The current review sought to synthesize the specific techniques within male-specific interventions that may contribute to an improvement in psychological help-seeking (attitudes, intentions, or behaviors).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To date, there is no single medication prescribed to alleviate all the core symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, 2016). Both serotonin reuptake inhibitors and drugs for psychosis possess therapeutic drawbacks when managing anxiety and aggression in ASD. This review sought to appraise the use of propranolol as a pharmacological alternative when managing emotional, behavioural and autonomic dysregulation (EBAD) and other symptoms.
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