A Latent Class Analysis on Indicators of Early Prolonged Grief Disorder and Well-Being Among Dutch Adults Bereaved During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Most studies examining prolonged grief disorder (PGD) in people bereaved during the COVID-19 pandemic are focused on psychopathology. However, mental health encompasses both absence of psychopathology and presence of well-being. This is the first study examining symptom profiles of early PGD and subjective mental well-being in 266 Dutch adults recently bereaved during the pandemic.

Structural equation modeling of treatment-related changes in neural connectivity for youth with PTSD.

Background: Previous studies suggest that improvement in symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is accompanied by changes in neural connectivity, however, few studies have investigated directional (effective) connectivity. The current study assesses treatment-related changes in effective connectivity in youth with PTSD undergoing Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT).

Methods: Functional MRI scans before and after 16 weeks of TF-CBT for 20 youth with PTSD, or the same time interval for 20 healthy controls (HC) were included in the analysis.

Predicting transitions between longitudinal classes of post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: protocol of a latent transition model in a general Dutch sample.

Background: A growing body of literature shows profound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, among which increased rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adjustment disorder (AD). However, current research efforts have largely been unilateral, focusing on psychopathology and not including well-being, and are dominated by examining average psychopathology levels or on disorder absence/presence, thereby ignoring individual differences in mental health. Knowledge on individual differences, as depicted by latent subgroups, in the full spectrum of mental health may provide valuable insights in how individuals transition between health states and factors that predict transitioning from resilient to symptomatic classes.

Unresolved-Disorganized Attachment is Associated With Smaller Hippocampus and Increased Functional Connectivity Beyond Psychopathology.

Loss and abuse in children can lead to unresolved-disorganized (UD) attachment. How this condition relates to brain structure and functional connectivity (FC) is unknown. We therefore aimed to investigate gray matter volume (GMV) and resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) correlates of UD attachment in adolescents.

Unresolved-disorganized attachment adjusted for a general psychopathology factor associated with atypical amygdala resting-state functional connectivity.

: Recent research has identified a general psychopathology factor (GPF), which explains overlap in presentation of psychopathological symptoms. Unresolved-disorganized attachment (Ud) is another transdiagnostic risk factor that may be relevant to explain differences in patient characteristics within diagnostic classifications. : In the current study, we examined unique relations of resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) with Ud and GPF.

Anterior cingulate cortex grey matter volume abnormalities in adolescents with PTSD after childhood sexual abuse.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) substantially increase the risk of later psychiatric and somatic pathology. While neurobiological factors are likely to play a mediating role, specific insights are lacking. The scarce neuroimaging studies in traumatised pediatric populations have provided inconsistent results, potentially due to the inclusion of different types of trauma.

Amygdala habituation to emotional faces in adolescents with internalizing disorders, adolescents with childhood sexual abuse related PTSD and healthy adolescents.

Adolescents with internalizing disorders and adolescents with childhood sexual abuse related post-traumatic stress disorder (CSA-related PTSD) show a large overlap in symptomatology. In addition, brain research indicated hyper-responsiveness and sustained activation instead of habituation of amygdala activation to emotional faces in both groups. Little is known, however, about whether the same patterns of amygdala habituation are present in these two groups.

Abnormal functional architecture of amygdala-centered networks in adolescent posttraumatic stress disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent, debilitating, and difficult to treat psychiatric disorder. Very little is known of how PTSD affects neuroplasticity in the developing adolescent brain. Whereas multiple lines of research implicate amygdala-centered network dysfunction in the pathophysiology of adult PTSD, no study has yet examined the functional architecture of amygdala subregional networks in adolescent PTSD.

Abnormalities of white matter integrity in the corpus callosum of adolescents with PTSD after childhood sexual abuse: a DTI study.

This study seeks to determine whether white matter integrity in the brain differs between adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and matched healthy adolescents and whether there is a relationship between white matter integrity and symptom severity in the patient group. Using 3T diffusion tensor imaging, we examined fractional anisotropy (FA) in a group of adolescents with CSA-related PTSD (n = 20) and matched healthy controls (n = 20), in a region of interest consisting of the bilateral uncinate fasciculus (UF), the genu, splenium and body of the corpus callosum (CC), and the bilateral cingulum. In addition, we performed an exploratory whole brain analysis.

Adult Attachment Interview differentiates adolescents with Childhood Sexual Abuse from those with clinical depression and non-clinical controls.

Although attachment representation is considered to be disturbed in traumatized adolescents, it is not known whether this is specific for trauma, as comparative studies with other clinical groups are lacking. Therefore, attachment representation was studied by means of the Adult Attachment Interview in adolescents with Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) (N = 21), clinical depression (N = 28) and non-clinical controls (N = 28). Coherence of mind and unresolved loss or trauma, as well as the disorganized attachment classification differentiated the CSA group from the clinical depression group and controls, over and above age, IQ, and psychiatric symptomatology.