7,779 research outputs found
Personality dimensions emerging during adolescence and young adulthood are underpinned by a single latent trait indexing impairment in social functioning
No full textBackground: Personality with stable behavioural traits emerges in the adolescent and young adult years. Models of putatively distinct, but correlated, personality traits have been developed to describe behavioural styles including schizotypal, narcissistic, callous-unemotional, negative emotionality, antisocial and impulsivity traits. These traits have influenced the classification of their related personality disorders. We tested if a bifactor model fits the data better than correlated-factor and orthogonal-factor models and subsequently validated the obtained factors with mental health measures and treatment history. / Method: A set of self-report questionnaires measuring the above traits together with measures of mental health and service use were collected from a volunteer community sample of adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 25 years (N = 2443). Results: The bifactor model with one general and four specific factors emerged in exploratory analysis, which fit data better than models with correlated or orthogonal factors. The general factor showed high reliability and validity. / Conclusions: The findings suggest that a selected range of putatively distinct personality traits is underpinned by a general latent personality trait that may be interpreted as a severity factor, with higher scores indexing more impairment in social functioning. The results are in line with ICD-11, which suggest an explicit link between personality disorders and compromised interpersonal or social function. The obtained general factor was akin to the overarching dimension of personality functioning (describing one’s relation to the self and others) proposed by DSM-5 Section III
Metacognitive impairments extend perceptual decision making weaknesses in compulsivity.
No full textAwareness of one's own abilities is of paramount importance in adaptive decision making. Psychotherapeutic theories assume such metacognitive insight is impaired in compulsivity, though this is supported by scant empirical evidence. In this study, we investigate metacognitive abilities in compulsive participants using computational models, where these enable a segregation between metacognitive and perceptual decision making impairments. We examined twenty low-compulsive and twenty high-compulsive participants, recruited from a large population-based sample, and matched for other psychiatric and cognitive dimensions. Hierarchical computational modelling of the participants' metacognitive abilities on a visual global motion detection paradigm revealed that high-compulsive participants had a reduced metacognitive ability. This impairment was accompanied by a perceptual decision making deficit whereby motion-related evidence was accumulated more slowly in high compulsive participants. Our study shows that the compulsivity spectrum is associated with a reduced ability to monitor one's own performance, over and above any perceptual decision making difficulties
Developmental cognitive neuroscience using Latent Change Score models: A tutorial and applications
No full textAssessing and analysing individual differences in change over time is of central scientific importance to developmental neuroscience. However, the literature is based largely on cross-sectional comparisons, which reflect a variety of influences and cannot directly represent change. We advocate using latent change score (LCS) models in longitudinal samples as a statistical framework to tease apart the complex processes underlying lifespan development in brain and behaviour using longitudinal data. LCS models provide a flexible framework that naturally accommodates key developmental questions as model parameters and can even be used, with some limitations, in cases with only two measurement occasions. We illustrate the use of LCS models with two empirical examples. In a lifespan cognitive training study (COGITO, N = 204 (N = 32 imaging) on two waves) we observe correlated change in brain and behaviour in the context of a high-intensity training intervention. In an adolescent development cohort (NSPN, N = 176, two waves) we find greater variability in cortical thinning in males than in females. To facilitate the adoption of LCS by the developmental community, we provide analysis code that can be adapted by other researchers and basic primers in two freely available SEM software packages (lavaan and Ωnyx)
Shedding Light on the Aftermath: Childhood Maltreatment’s Role in Modifying the Association Between Recent Life Stress and Resting-State Network Connectivity
No full textChildhood maltreatment has been demonstrated to impact brain development. However, whether childhood maltreatment can influence the effects of recent stress on brain networks remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether childhood maltreatment moderates the longitudinal relationship between recent life stress and within- and between-network connectivity in key brain networks, including the anterior salience (ASN), central executive (CEN), default mode (DMN), and emotional regulation network (ERN). A cohort of 172 individuals from the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN) underwent MRI scans at two specific time points and undertook evaluations of childhood maltreatment and recent life stress. The results showed that childhood abuse moderated the association of recent life stress with the within-network connectivity of ASN and ERN but not DMN and CEN. Furthermore, recent life stress significantly interacted with childhood abuse to be associated with the between-network connectivity of ASN-DMN, ASN-CEN, ASN-ERN, DMN-ERN and CEN-ERN. Overall, among youth exposed to higher degrees of childhood abuse, greater recent life stress was longitudinally associated with increased network connectivity. Understanding these interactions can provide valuable insights for developing prevention strategies and interventions aimed at mitigating the lasting impact of childhood maltreatment on brain development and overall well-being
Increased decision thresholds trigger extended information gathering across the compulsivity spectrum
No full textIndecisiveness and doubt are cognitive phenotypes of compulsive disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder. Little is known regarding the cognitive mechanisms that drive these behaviours across a compulsivity spectrum. Here, we used a sequential information gathering task to study indecisiveness in subjects with high and low obsessive-compulsive scores. These subjects were selected from a large population-representative database, and matched for intellectual and psychiatric factors. We show that high compulsive subjects sampled more information and performed better when sampling was cost-free. When sampling was costly, both groups adapted flexibly to reduce their information gathering. Computational modelling revealed that increased information gathering behaviour could be explained by higher decision thresholds that, in turn, were driven by a delayed emergence of impatience or urgency. Our findings show that indecisiveness generalises to a compulsivity spectrum beyond frank clinical disorder, and this behaviour can be explained within a decision-theoretic framework as arising from an augmented decision threshold associated with an attenuated urgency signal
Cohort profile update: The Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN) 2400 cohort during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textCompulsivity is linked to reduced adolescent development of goal-directed control and frontostriatal functional connectivity
No full textA characteristic of adaptive behavior is its goal-directed nature. An ability to act in a goal-directed manner is progressively refined during development, but this refinement can be impacted by the emergence of psychiatric disorders. Disorders of compulsivity have been framed computationally as a deficit in model-based control, and have been linked also to abnormal frontostriatal connectivity. However, the developmental trajectory of model-based control, including an interplay between its maturation and an emergence of compulsivity, has not been characterized. Availing of a large sample of healthy adolescents (n = 569) aged 14 to 24 y, we show behaviorally that over the course of adolescence there is a within-person increase in model-based control, and this is more pronounced in younger participants. Using a bivariate latent change score model, we provide evidence that the presence of higher compulsivity traits is associated with an atypical profile of this developmental maturation in model-based control. Resting-state fMRI data from a subset of the behaviorally assessed subjects (n = 230) revealed that compulsivity is associated with a less pronounced change of within-subject developmental remodeling of functional connectivity, specifically between the striatum and a frontoparietal network. Thus, in an otherwise clinically healthy population sample, in early development, individual differences in compulsivity are linked to the developmental trajectory of model-based control and a remodeling of frontostriatal connectivity
White matter tract myelin maturation and its association with general psychopathology in adolescence and early adulthood.
No full textAdolescence is a time period associated with marked brain maturation that coincides with an enhanced risk for onset of psychiatric disorder. White matter tract myelination, a process that continues to unfold throughout adolescence, is reported to be abnormal in several psychiatric disorders. Here, we ask whether psychiatric vulnerability is linked to aberrant developmental myelination trajectories. We assessed a marker of myelin maturation, using magnetisation transfer (MT) imaging, in 10 major white matter tracts. We then investigated its relationship to the expression of a general psychopathology "p-factor" in a longitudinal analysis of 293 healthy participants between the ages of 14 and 24. We observed significant longitudinal MT increase across the full age spectrum in anterior thalamic radiation, hippocampal cingulum, dorsal cingulum and superior longitudinal fasciculus. MT increase in the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus was pronounced in younger participants but levelled off during the transition into young adulthood. Crucially, longitudinal MT increase in dorsal cingulum and uncinate fasciculus decelerated as a function of mean p-factor scores over the study period. This suggests that an increased expression of psychopathology is closely linked to lower rates of myelin maturation in selective brain tracts over time. Impaired myelin growth in limbic association fibres may serve as a neural marker for emerging mental illness during the course of adolescence and early adulthood
Multiple holdouts with stability: Improving the generalizability of machine learning analyses of brain-behaviour relationships
No full textBACKGROUND: In 2009, the National Institute of Mental Health launched the Research Domain Criteria, an attempt to move beyond diagnostic categories and ground psychiatry within neurobiological constructs that combine different levels of measures (e.g., brain imaging and behavior). Statistical methods that can integrate such multimodal data, however, are often vulnerable to overfitting, poor generalization, and difficulties in interpreting the results. METHODS: We propose an innovative machine learning framework combining multiple holdouts and a stability criterion with regularized multivariate techniques, such as sparse partial least squares and kernel canonical correlation analysis, for identifying hidden dimensions of cross-modality relationships. To illustrate the approach, we investigated structural brain-behavior associations in an extensively phenotyped developmental sample of 345 participants (312 healthy and 33 with clinical depression). The brain data consisted of whole-brain voxel-based gray matter volumes, and the behavioral data included item-level self-report questionnaires and IQ and demographic measures. RESULTS: Both sparse partial least squares and kernel canonical correlation analysis captured two hidden dimensions of brain-behavior relationships: one related to age and drinking and the other one related to depression. The applied machine learning framework indicates that these results are stable and generalize well to new data. Indeed, the identified brain-behavior associations are in agreement with previous findings in the literature concerning age, alcohol use, and depression-related changes in brain volume. CONCLUSIONS: Multivariate techniques (such as sparse partial least squares and kernel canonical correlation analysis) embedded in our novel framework are promising tools to link behavior and/or symptoms to neurobiology and thus have great potential to contribute to a biologically grounded definition of psychiatric disorders
Conservative and disruptive modes of adolescent change in human brain functional connectivity
No full textAdolescent changes in human brain function are not entirely understood. Here, we used multiecho functional MRI (fMRI) to measure developmental change in functional connectivity (FC) of resting-state oscillations between pairs of 330 cortical regions and 16 subcortical regions in 298 healthy adolescents scanned 520 times. Participants were aged 14 to 26 y and were scanned on 1 to 3 occasions at least 6 mo apart. We found 2 distinct modes of age-related change in FC: “conservative” and “disruptive.” Conservative development was characteristic of primary cortex, which was strongly connected at 14 y and became even more connected in the period from 14 to 26 y. Disruptive development was characteristic of association cortex and subcortical regions, where connectivity was remodeled: connections that were weak at 14 y became stronger during adolescence, and connections that were strong at 14 y became weaker. These modes of development were quantified using the maturational index (MI), estimated as Spearman’s correlation between edgewise baseline FC (at 14 y, FC14) and adolescent change in FC (ΔFC14−26), at each region. Disruptive systems (with negative MI) were activated by social cognition and autobiographical memory tasks in prior fMRI data and significantly colocated with prior maps of aerobic glycolysis (AG), AG-related gene expression, postnatal cortical surface expansion, and adolescent shrinkage of cortical thickness. The presence of these 2 modes of development was robust to numerous sensitivity analyses. We conclude that human brain organization is disrupted during adolescence by remodeling of FC between association cortical and subcortical areas
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