Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis network responses to unpredictable threat in early alcohol abstinence.

Background: Anxiety during early alcohol abstinence, likely resulting from neural changes caused by chronic alcohol use, contributes to high relapse rates. Studies in rodents show heightened activation during early abstinence in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST)-a neural hub for anxiety-and its extended anxiety-related corticolimbic network. Despite the clinical importance of early abstinence, few studies investigate the underlying neural mechanisms.

Alterations in BNST Intrinsic Functional Connectivity in Early Abstinence from Alcohol Use Disorder.

Aims: Maintaining abstinence from alcohol use disorder (AUD) is extremely challenging, partially due to increased symptoms of anxiety and stress that trigger relapse. Rodent models of AUD have identified that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) contributes to symptoms of anxiety-like behavior and drug-seeking during abstinence. In humans, however, the BNST's role in abstinence remains poorly understood.

Measurement-Based Care in the Adolescent Partial Hospital Setting: Implementation, Challenges, & Future Directions.

In this paper, we describe the process of implementing measurement-based care (MBC) in the adolescent partial hospital program setting. First, we outline the rationale for incorporating MBC in this treatment setting. Second, we describe the partial hospital setting in which implementation took place, including the patient population, treatment providers, and structure of programming.

Longitudinal predictors of depression, anxiety, and alcohol use following COVID-19-related stress.

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed profound effects on health and daily life, with widespread stress exposure and increases in psychiatric symptoms. Despite these challenges, pandemic research provides unique insights into individual differences in emotion and cognition that predict responses to stress, with general implications for understanding stress vulnerability. We examined predictors of responses to COVID-19-related stress in an online sample of 450 emerging adults recruited in May 2020 to complete questionnaires assessing baseline stress and psychiatric symptoms, rumination, cognitive reappraisal use and intolerance of uncertainty.

Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and amygdala responses to unpredictable threat in children.

Substantial evidence from studies in humans suggests the amygdala is pivotal for anxiety. Findings from animal models and translational studies suggests the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is also critical for anxiety and the anticipation of unpredictable threat in adults. However, it remains unknown whether the BNST is involved in unpredictable threat anticipation in children.

Alterations in connectivity of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis during early abstinence in individuals with alcohol use disorder.

Background: For individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), long-term recovery is difficult in part due to symptoms of anxiety that occur during early abstinence and can trigger relapse. Research in rodent models of AUD has identified the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a small, sexually dimorphic, subcortical region, as critical for regulating anxiety-like behaviors during abstinence, particularly in female mice. Furthermore, prolonged alcohol use and subsequent abstinence alter BNST afferent and efferent connections to other brain regions.

Anxiety during abstinence from alcohol: A systematic review of rodent and human evidence for the anterior insula's role in the abstinence network.

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a chronic, relapsing disease that impacts almost a third of Americans. Despite effective treatments for attaining sobriety, the majority of patients relapse within a year, making relapse a substantial barrier to long-term treatment success. A major factor contributing to relapse is heightened negative affect that results from the combination of abstinence-related increases in stress-reactivity and decreases in reward sensitivity.

Social anxiety is associated with BNST response to unpredictability.

Background: Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and cause substantial suffering and impairment. Whereas the amygdala has well-established contributions to anxiety, evidence from rodent and nonhuman primate models suggests that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) may play a critical, and possibly distinct, role in human anxiety disorders. The BNST mediates hypervigilance and anticipatory anxiety in response to an unpredictable or ambiguous threat, core symptoms of social anxiety, yet little is known about the BNST's role in social anxiety.

Electroconvulsive Therapy as a Safe, Effective Treatment for Catatonia in an Adolescent with a Nasogastric Tube: A Case Report.

This case provides support for electroconvulsive therapy as a safe treatment in adolescents with a feeding tube. The patient presented to our hospital with symptoms of catatonia with minimal oral intake. She had stopped eating, had minimal interaction with her environment, and spent weeks with a nasogastric tube for nutritional support.

Meeting Youth Where They Are: Substance Use Disorder Treatment in Schools.

Providing school-based mental health treatment offers an opportunity to reach a greater number of affected youth by providing services in the setting where youth spend the majority of their time. In some contexts, even a single session of assessment has been linked with significant decreases in substance use; however, more robust treatments are likely needed to sustain these decreases over time. Empirically based individual and group treatments designed for delivery in clinic settings can readily be adapted for implementation in school settings.

Altered Prefrontal Cortex Function Marks Heightened Anxiety Risk in Children.

Objective: Anxiety disorders are prevalent and cause substantial disability. An important risk factor for anxiety disorders is inhibited temperament, the tendency to be shy and to avoid new situations. Inhibited adults have heightened amygdala activation and less flexible engagement of the prefrontal cortex (PFC); however, it remains unknown whether these brain alterations are present in inhibited children before the onset of anxiety disorders.

Sex differences in psychophysical and neurophysiological responses to pain in older adults: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Neuroimaging studies in younger adults have demonstrated sex differences in brain processing of painful experimental stimuli. Such differences may contribute to findings that women suffer disproportionately from pain. It is not known whether sex-related differences in pain processing extend to older adults.

Disgust proneness and associated neural substrates in obesity.

Defects in experiencing disgust may contribute to obesity by allowing for the overconsumption of food. However, the relationship of disgust proneness and its associated neural locus has yet to be explored in the context of obesity. Thirty-three participants (17 obese, 16 lean) completed the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised and a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm where images from 4 categories (food, contaminates, contaminated food or fixation) were randomly presented.

Implementing clinical outcomes assessment in everyday school mental health practice.

Evidence-based assessment (EBA) has been shown to improve clinical outcomes, but this practice is frequently not implemented in school mental health practice. This article reviews potential barriers to implementation and offers practical strategies for addressing these challenges. Several valid and reliable tools for assessment are reviewed, and information is provided on clinical use.

The role of schools in substance use prevention and intervention.

Schools provide an ideal setting for screening, brief interventions, and outpatient treatment for substance use disorders (SUD). Individual treatment for SUD is effective at decreasing substance use as well as substance-related harm. In some contexts, rather than being helpful, group interventions can result in harm to participants; therefore, individual treatment may be preferred.

Educational impacts of the social and emotional brain.

Advances in neuroscience related to social and emotional development have significant implications for educational practice. The human brain cannot fully dissociate cognitive from emotional events, and therefore educational programming that recognizes the importance of social-emotional development also facilitates academic achievement. The ideal learning environment encourages the development of social-emotional and academic neuronal pathways.

Being present at school: implementing mindfulness in schools.

Developmentally sensitive efforts to help students learn, practice, and regularly use mindfulness tactics easily and readily in and beyond the classroom are important to help them manage future stresses. Mindfulness emphasizes consciously focusing the mind in the present moment, purposefully, without judgment or attachment. Meditation extends this to setting aside time and places to practice mindfulness, and additionally, yoga includes physical postures and breathing techniques that enhance mindfulness and meditation.

Neurocircuitry underlying risk and resilience to social anxiety disorder.

Background: Almost half of children with an inhibited temperament will develop social anxiety disorder by late adolescence. Importantly, this means that half of children with an inhibited temperament will not develop social anxiety disorder. Studying adults with an inhibited temperament provides a unique opportunity to identify neural signatures of both risk and resilience to social anxiety disorder.

Amygdala-cingulate intrinsic connectivity is associated with degree of social inhibition.

The tendency to approach or avoid novel people is a fundamental human behavior and is a core dimension of social anxiety. Resting state fMRI was used to test for an association between social inhibition and intrinsic connectivity in 40 young adults ranging from low to high in social inhibition. Higher levels of social inhibition were associated with specific patterns of reduced amygdala-cingulate cortex connectivity.

Structural and functional bases of inhibited temperament.

Children born with an inhibited temperament are at heightened risk for developing anxiety, depression and substance use. Inhibited temperament is believed to have a biological basis; however, little is known about the structural brain basis of this vulnerability trait. Structural MRI scans were obtained from 84 (44 inhibited, 40 uninhibited) young adults.

Caudate responses to reward anticipation associated with delay discounting behavior in healthy youth.

Background: Choices requiring delay of gratification made during adolescence can have significant impact on life trajectory. Willingness to delay gratification can be measured using delay discounting tasks that require a choice between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. Individual differences in the subjective value of delayed rewards are associated with risk for development of psychopathology including substance abuse.

Cannabis cue-induced brain activation correlates with drug craving in limbic and visual salience regions: preliminary results.

Craving is a major motivator underlying drug use and relapse but the neural correlates of cannabis craving are not well understood. This study sought to determine whether visual cannabis cues increase cannabis craving and whether cue-induced craving is associated with regional brain activation in cannabis-dependent individuals. Cannabis craving was assessed in 16 cannabis-dependent adult volunteers while they viewed cannabis cues during a functional MRI (fMRI) scan.