The impact of online brain training exercises on experiences of depression, anxiety and emotional wellbeing in a twin sample.

This study assessed the effectiveness of cognitive and emotional brain training and transfer effects to wellbeing and depression and anxiety symptoms. 352 healthy adult twins were randomised to a training group where they were asked to play brain training games over a 30-day period, or a waitlist control group. This study focused on the impact of the brain training on explicit and implicit emotional cognition, and analysed effects using both Intention-To-Treat (ITT) and Per-Protocol (PP) approaches.

A negative association between brainstem pontine grey-matter volume, well-being and resilience in healthy twins.

Background: Associations between well-being, resilience to trauma and the volume of grey-matter regions involved in affective processing (e.g., threat/reward circuits) are largely unexplored, as are the roles of shared genetic and environmental factors derived from multivariate twin modelling.

Genetic correlations between wellbeing, depression and anxiety symptoms and behavioral responses to the emotional faces task in healthy twins.

Currently there is a very limited understanding of how mental wellbeing versus anxiety and depression symptoms are associated with emotion processing behaviour. For the first time, we examined these associations using a behavioural emotion task of positive and negative facial expressions in 1668 healthy adult twins. Linear mixed model results suggested faster reaction times to happy facial expressions was associated with higher wellbeing scores, and slower reaction times with higher depression and anxiety scores.

The shared and unique genetic relationship between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in healthy twins.

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic (G) and environmental (E) variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated (p < .

Shared versus distinct genetic contributions of mental wellbeing with depression and anxiety symptoms in healthy twins.

Mental wellbeing and mental illness symptoms are typically conceptualized as opposite ends of a continuum, despite only sharing about a quarter in common variance. We investigated the normative variation in measures of wellbeing and of depression and anxiety in 1486 twins who did not meet clinical criteria for an overt diagnosis. We quantified the shared versus distinct genetic and environmental variance between wellbeing and depression and anxiety symptoms.