Cognitive control as a potential neural mechanism of protective role of spirituality in anxiety disorders among American Indian people: An ERP study.

Research suggests that traditional cultural factors are protective against mental health conditions in American Indian (AI) populations. This study aims to determine if cognitive control is a neurocognitive mechanism of the protective role of spirituality in AI people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Participants self-identified as AI (n = 52) and included individuals with GAD (n = 16) and without GAD (n = 36).

Elevated serum leptin is associated with attenuated reward anticipation in major depressive disorder independent of peripheral C-reactive protein levels.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with immunologic and metabolic alterations linked to central processing dysfunctions, including attenuated reward processing. This study investigated the associations between inflammation, metabolic hormones (leptin, insulin, adiponectin), and reward-related brain processing in MDD patients with high (MDD-High) and low (MDD-Low) C-reactive protein (CRP) levels compared to healthy comparison subjects (HC). Participants completed a blood draw and a monetary incentive delay task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Striatal hypoactivation during monetary loss anticipation in individuals with substance use disorders in a heterogenous urban American Indian sample.

Research suggests that disproportionate exposure to risk factors places American Indian (AI) peoples at higher risk for substance use disorders (SUD). Although SUD is linked to striatal prioritization of drug rewards over other appetitive stimuli, there are gaps in the literature related to the investigation of aversive valuation processing, and inclusion of AI samples. To address these gaps, this study compared striatal anticipatory gain and loss processing between AI-identified with SUD (SUD+; n = 52) and without SUD (SUD-; n = 35) groups from the Tulsa 1000 study who completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The beneficial effect of sleep on behavioral health problems in youth is disrupted by prenatal cannabis exposure: A causal random forest analysis of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development data.

Studies suggest prenatal cannabis exposure is associated with mood/behavioral problems in children. However, it is unclear if targeting modifiable domains like sleep behaviors would improve outcomes in exposed youth. Using a causal inference framework, the effect of changing sleep-hours on changing internalizing/externalizing problems in children was examined using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development™ study baseline (ages 9-10; collected during 2016-2018) and year-1 follow-up data (N = 9825; 4663 female; 5196 white).

Conduct problems are associated with accelerated thinning of emotion-related cortical regions in a community-based sample of adolescents.

Few studies have examined the association between conduct problems and cerebral cortical development. Herein, we characterize the association between age-related brain change and conduct problems in a large longitudinal, community-based sample of adolescents. 1,039 participants from the IMAGEN study possessed psychopathology and surface-based morphometric data at study baseline (M = 14.

Chronotype, Longitudinal Volumetric Brain Variations Throughout Adolescence, and Depressive Symptom Development.

Objective: Adolescence is a critical period for circadian rhythm, with a strong shift toward eveningness around age 14. Also, eveningness in adolescence has been found to predict later onset of depressive symptoms. However, no previous study has investigated structural variations associated with chronotype in early adolescence and how this adds to the development of depressive symptoms.

Bayesian causal network modeling suggests adolescent cannabis use accelerates prefrontal cortical thinning.

While there is substantial evidence that cannabis use is associated with differences in human brain development, most of this evidence is correlational in nature. Bayesian causal network (BCN) modeling attempts to identify probable causal relationships in correlational data using conditional probabilities to estimate directional associations between a set of interrelated variables. In this study, we employed BCN modeling in 637 adolescents from the IMAGEN study who were cannabis naïve at age 14 to provide evidence that the accelerated prefrontal cortical thinning found previously in adolescent cannabis users by Albaugh et al.

Association of Cannabis Use During Adolescence With Neurodevelopment.

Importance: Animal studies have shown that the adolescent brain is sensitive to disruptions in endocannabinoid signaling, resulting in altered neurodevelopment and lasting behavioral effects. However, few studies have investigated ties between cannabis use and adolescent brain development in humans.

Objective: To examine the degree to which magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-assessed cerebral cortical thickness development is associated with cannabis use in a longitudinal sample of adolescents.

COVID-19 vaccine willingness and cannabis use histories.

Background: Cannabis use is associated with problematic health-behaviors such as excessive alcohol and tobacco use, and sedentary behavior. Here, we examined the association between cannabis use history and an especially topical health-behavior, willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Methods: COVID-19 vaccine willingness was surveyed in a subset of participants from the Tulsa 1000 Study, which is a longitudinal study of psychiatric treatment-seeking and healthy control participants.

Elevated peripheral inflammation is associated with attenuated striatal reward anticipation in major depressive disorder.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide, and up to 40% of individuals with MDD do not respond to current treatments. Studies suggest that peripheral inflammation plays an important role in the striatal mesolimbic dopamine pathway and corticostriatal reward circuitry in MDD. Although MDD patients show blunted striatal responses to reward, the link between degree of inflammation and attenuation of reward processing is unclear.

Substance Use Initiation, Particularly Alcohol, in Drug-Naive Adolescents: Possible Predictors and Consequences From a Large Cohort Naturalistic Study.

Objective: It is unclear whether deviations in brain and behavioral development, which may underpin elevated substance use during adolescence, are predispositions for or consequences of substance use initiation. Here, we examine behavioral and neuroimaging indices at early and mid-adolescence in drug-naive youths to identify possible predisposing factors for substance use initiation and its possible consequences.

Method: Among 304 drug-naive adolescents at baseline (age 14 years) from the IMAGEN dataset, 83 stayed drug-naive, 133 used alcohol on 1 to 9 occasions, 42 on 10 to 19 occasions, 27 on 20 to 39 occasions, and 19 on >40 occasions at follow-up (age 16 years).

Parsing impulsivity in individuals with anxiety and depression who use Cannabis.

Background: Individuals with anxiety/depression may impulsively use cannabis to acutely induce positive affect and attenuate aversive mood states. However, few studies have attempted to parse impulsivity displayed by anxious/depressed cannabis users. This investigation examined what aspects of impulsivity characterize those individuals using self-report and functional MRI (fMRI) measures.

Neural Correlates of Adolescent Irritability and Its Comorbidity With Psychiatric Disorders.

Objective: Irritable mood, a common and impairing symptom in psychopathology, has been proposed to underlie the developmental link between oppositional problems in youth and depression in adulthood. We examined the neural correlates of adolescent irritability in IMAGEN, a sample of 2,024 14-year-old adolescents from 5 European countries.

Method: The Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) was used to assess attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, major depressive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.

Longitudinal associations between amygdala reactivity and cannabis use in a large sample of adolescents.

Rationale: The amygdala is a key brain structure to study in relation to cannabis use as reflected by its high-density of cannabinoid receptors and functional reactivity to processes relevant to drug use. Previously, we identified a correlation between cannabis use in early adolescence and amygdala hyper-reactivity to angry faces (Spechler et al. 2015).

Attenuated reward activations associated with cannabis use in anxious/depressed individuals.

Individuals with mood/anxiety disorders may use cannabis for "self-medication," i.e., to induce positive mood or attenuate aversive mood states.

Examination of the neural basis of psychotic-like experiences in adolescence during processing of emotional faces.

Contemporary theories propose that dysregulation of emotional perception is involved in the aetiology of psychosis. 298 healthy adolescents were assessed at age 14- and 19-years using fMRI while performing a facial emotion task. Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) were assessed with the CAPE-42 questionnaire at age 19.

Association of Gray Matter and Personality Development With Increased Drunkenness Frequency During Adolescence.

Importance: Alcohol abuse correlates with gray matter development in adolescents, but the directionality of this association remains unknown.

Objective: To investigate the directionality of the association between gray matter development and increase in frequency of drunkenness among adolescents.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study analyzed participants of IMAGEN, a multicenter brain imaging study of healthy adolescents in 8 European sites in Germany (Mannheim, Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg), the United Kingdom (London and Nottingham), Ireland (Dublin), and France (Paris).

Identification of neurobehavioural symptom groups based on shared brain mechanisms.

Most psychopathological disorders develop in adolescence. The biological basis for this development is poorly understood. To enhance diagnostic characterization and develop improved targeted interventions, it is critical to identify behavioural symptom groups that share neural substrates.

Low Smoking Exposure, the Adolescent Brain, and the Modulating Role of CHRNA5 Polymorphisms.

Background: Studying the neural consequences of tobacco smoking during adolescence, including those associated with early light use, may help expose the mechanisms that underlie the transition from initial use to nicotine dependence in adulthood. However, only a few studies in adolescents exist, and they include small samples. In addition, the neural mechanism, if one exists, that links nicotinic receptor genes to smoking behavior in adolescents is still unknown.

Amygdalar reactivity is associated with prefrontal cortical thickness in a large population-based sample of adolescents.

In structural neuroimaging studies, reduced cerebral cortical thickness in orbital and ventromedial prefrontal regions is frequently interpreted as reflecting an impaired ability to downregulate neuronal activity in the amygdalae. Unfortunately, little research has been conducted in order to test this conjecture. We examine the extent to which amygdalar reactivity is associated with cortical thickness in a population-based sample of adolescents.

Neuroimaging Evidence for Right Orbitofrontal Cortex Differences in Adolescents With Emotional and Behavioral Dysregulation.

Objective: To characterize the structural and functional neurobiology of a large group of adolescents exhibiting a behaviorally and emotionally dysregulated phenotype.

Method: Adolescents aged 14 years from the IMAGEN study were investigated. Latent class analysis (LCA) on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to identify a class of individuals with elevated behavioral and emotional difficulties ("dysregulated"; n = 233) who were compared to a matched sample from a low symptom class (controls, n = 233).

White matter microstructure is associated with hyperactive/inattentive symptomatology and polygenic risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in a population-based sample of adolescents.

Few studies have investigated the link between putative biomarkers of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology and genetic risk for ADHD. To address this, we investigate the degree to which ADHD symptomatology is associated with white matter microstructure and cerebral cortical thickness in a large population-based sample of adolescents. Critically, we then test the extent to which multimodal correlates of ADHD symptomatology are related to ADHD polygenic risk score (PRS).

Grey Matter Volume Differences Associated with Extremely Low Levels of Cannabis Use in Adolescence.

Rates of cannabis use among adolescents are high, and are increasing concurrent with changes in the legal status of marijuana and societal attitudes regarding its use. Recreational cannabis use is understudied, especially in the adolescent period when neural maturation may make users particularly vulnerable to the effects of Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on brain structure. In the current study, we used voxel-based morphometry to compare gray matter volume (GMV) in forty-six 14-year-old human adolescents (males and females) with just one or two instances of cannabis use and carefully matched THC-naive controls.