If you're happy and you know it: neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and well-being

Psychological health and well-being have important implications for individual and societal thriving. Research underscores the subjective nature of well-being, but how do individuals intuit this subjective sense of well-being in the moment? This pre-registered study addresses this question by examining the neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and their dynamic relationship with trial-level evaluations. Participants (N = 105) completed a self-evaluation task and made judgments about three facets of psychological health and positive functioning-self-oriented well-being, social well-being and ill-being. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, self-evaluation elicited activity in the default mode network, and there was strong spatial overlap among constructs. Trial-level analyses assessed whether and how activity in a priori regions of interest-perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and ventral striatum-were related to subjective evaluations. These regions explained additional variance in whether participants endorsed or rejected items but were differentially related to evaluations. Stronger activity in pgACC was associated with a higher probability of endorsement across constructs, whereas stronger activity in vmPFC was associated with a higher probability of endorsing ill-being items, but a lower probability of endorsing self-oriented and social well-being items. These results add nuance to neurocognitive accounts of self-evaluation and extend our understanding of the neurobiological basis of subjective psychological health and well-being.

Associations between multi-method latent factors of puberty and brain structure in adolescent girls

Pubertal processes are associated with structural brain development, but studies have produced inconsistent findings that may relate to different measurements of puberty. Measuring both hormones and physical characteristics is important for capturing variation in neurobiological development. The current study explored associations between cortical thickness and latent factors from multi-method pubertal data in 174 early adolescent girls aged 10-13 years in the Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) Study. Our multi-method approach used self-reported physical characteristics and hormone levels (dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone (T), and estradiol (E2) from saliva) to estimate an overall pubertal factor and for each process of adrenarche and gonadarche. There were negative associations between the overall puberty factor representing later stage and thickness in the posterior cortex, including the occipital cortices and extending laterally to the parietal lobe. However, the multi-method latent factor had weaker cortical associations when examining the adnearcheal process alone, suggesting physical characteristics and hormones capture different aspects of neurobiological development during adrenarche. Controlling for age weakened some of these associations. These findings show that associations between pubertal stage and cortical thickness differ depending on the measurement method and the pubertal process, and both should be considered in future confirmatory studies on the developing brain.

Trait Mindfulness Supports Self-perceived Scholastic Competence in Adolescent Girls

Identity development is a core task of adolescence. Self-perceptions of scholastic competence are tied to the academic domain of identity development and have immediate consequences for educational attainment. Understanding the malleability of self-perceptions of scholastic competence, and the factors which may influence its developmental course, are crucial for efforts to improve educational outcomes. This preregistered longitudinal study describes how self-perceived scholastic competence changes across early adolescence, relates to trait mindfulness, and is impacted by school transitions. We investigated these questions in 174 adolescent girls (10–16 years), who each contributed up to three waves of data, using multilevel modeling. Our results demonstrated that prior levels of self-reported mindfulness and school transitions are positively related to self-perceived scholastic competence, whereas age is not.

Differential neural sensitivity to social inclusion and exclusion in adolescents in foster care

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Foster care youth and controls differ in neural sensitivity to social interactions.

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Foster care youth have greater lateral prefrontal response to exclusion.

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They also have less neural response to inclusion.

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Some of these neural patterns are driven by adverse childhood experiences.

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Neural patterns are also related to externalizing problems in foster care youth.

Objectives

Adolescents in foster care may exhibit differential patterns of brain functioning that contribute to their pervasive socioemotional challenges. However, there has been limited investigation of implicated neural processes, particularly in the social domain. Thus, the current study investigated neural responses to exclusionary and inclusionary peer interactions in adolescents in foster-care.

Methods

Participants comprised adolescents aged 11–18 years in foster care (N = 69) and a community sample (N = 69). They completed an fMRI adaptation of Cyberball, a virtual ball-throwing paradigm, that included periods of exclusion and over-inclusion. To investigate neural sensitivity to peer social experiences, we quantified neural responses that scaled with consecutive inclusionary and exclusionary interactions (using parametric modulators).

Results

Relative to the community sample, adolescents in foster care exhibited increasing response to consecutive exclusionary events in lateral prefrontal regions and decreasing response to consecutive inclusionary events in the intraparietal sulcus and temporo-occipital cortex. Further, exploratory analyses revealed that dorsolateral prefrontal activation to exclusion was related to externalizing problems, particularly in the foster care sample.

Conclusions

Findings highlight greater neural sensitivity to exclusionary, and lesser sensitivity to inclusionary, peer interactions in adolescents in foster care. Engagement of prefrontal clusters may reflect greater salience and emotion regulatory processes during exclusion, while parietal and temporal clusters may reflect reduced attention and behavioural engagement during inclusion. Thus foster care involvement is associated with broad changes in neural responses during peer interactions, and further these potentially relate to externalizing problems that have been identified in this vulnerable population.

Expectations of Social Consequences Impact Anticipated Involvement in Health-Risk Behavior During Adolescence

This study examined how individual differences in expectations of social consequences relate to individuals' expected involvement in health-risk behaviors (HRBs). A total of 122 adolescents (aged 11-17) reported their expected involvement in a number of risk behaviors and whether or not they expect to be liked more or less by engaging in the behavior: the expected social benefit. Higher perceived social benefit was associated with higher anticipated involvement in said behavior. This relationship was stronger for adolescents who reported a higher degree of peer victimization, supporting the hypothesis that experiencing victimization increases the social value of peer interactions. Findings suggest that adolescents incorporate expectations of social consequences when making decisions regarding their involvement in HRBs.

Getting to know me better: An fMRI study of intimate and superficial self-disclosure to friends during adolescence

Adolescence is often defined as a period of social reorientation, characterized by increased engagement with, and reliance on, same-aged peers. Consistent with these shifting motivations, we hypothesized that communicating information about oneself to friends would be intrinsically valued during adolescence. We specifically examined behavioral and neural differences when sharing information of varying depth in intimacy. These questions were investigated in a sample of early adolescent girls (N = 125, ages 10.0-13.0 years) who completed a self-disclosure monetary choice task while undergoing fMRI. Behaviorally, adolescents gave up more money to share superficial self-referential information than intimate self-referential information with a (real-life) close friend. Neural analyses identified extensive engagement of regions that support social cognition and emotion regulation when engaging in intimate self-disclosure. Behavioral and neural valuation of sharing superficial information were related to individual differences in self-worth and friendship quality. Comparatively, across all levels of analyses, adolescents were less likely to share intimate information. Findings highlight both the value and costs associated with self-disclosure during this time of increased peer sensitivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Study Protocol: Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG)

BACKGROUND

Despite recent studies linking pubertal processes to brain development, as well as research demonstrating the importance of both pubertal and neurodevelopmental processes for adolescent mental health, there is limited knowledge of the full pathways and mechanisms behind the emergence of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders in adolescence. The Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) study aims to understand the complex relationships between pubertal development, brain structure and connectivity, the behavioral and neural correlates of social and self-perception processes, and adolescent mental health in female adolescents.

METHODS

The TAG study includes 174 female adolescents aged 10.0 to 13.0 years, recruited from the local community in Lane County, Oregon, USA. The participants, along with a parent/guardian, will complete three waves of assessment over the course of 3 years; the third wave is currently underway. Each wave includes collection of four saliva samples (one per week) and one hair sample for the assessment of hormone levels and immune factors; an MRI session including structural, diffusion, resting-state functional and task-based functional scans; the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS), a diagnostic interview on current and lifetime mental health; production of a short self-narrative video; and measurement of height, weight, and waist circumference. The functional MRI tasks include a self-evaluation paradigm and a self-disclosure paradigm. In addition, adolescents and their parents/guardians complete a number of surveys to report on the adolescent's pubertal development, mental health, social environment and life events; adolescents also report on various indices of self-perception and social-emotional functioning.

DISCUSSION

The knowledge gained from this study will include developmental trajectories of pubertal, neurological, and social processes and their roles as mechanisms in predicting emergence of mental illness in female adolescents. This knowledge will help identify modifiable, developmentally specific risk factors as targets for early intervention and prevention efforts.

Choosing to regulate: does choice enhance craving regulation?

Goal-directed behavior and lifelong well-being often depend on the ability to control appetitive motivations, such as cravings. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective way to modulate emotional states, including cravings, but is often studied under explicit instruction to regulate. Despite the strong prediction from Self-Determination Theory that choice should enhance task engagement and regulation success, little is known empirically about whether and how regulation is different when participants choose (vs are told) to exert control. To investigate how choice affects neural activity and regulation success, participants reappraised their responses to images of personally-craved foods while undergoing functional neuroimaging. Participants were either instructed to view or reappraise ('no-choice') or chose freely to view or reappraise ('yes-choice'). Choice increased activity in the frontoparietal control network. We expected this activity would be associated with increased task engagement, resulting in better regulation success. However, contrary to this prediction, choice slightly reduced regulation success. Follow-up multivariate functional neuroimaging analyses indicated that choice likely disrupted allocation of limited cognitive resources during reappraisal. While unexpected, these results highlight the importance of studying upstream processes such as regulation choice, as they may affect the ability to regulate cravings and other emotional states.

Novel insights from the Yellow Light Game: Safe and risky decisions differentially impact adolescent outcome-related brain function

Changes across the span of adolescence in the adolescent reward system are thought to increase the tendency to take risks. While developmental differences in decision and outcome-related reward processes have been studied extensively, existing paradigms have largely neglected to measure how different types of decisions modulate reward-related outcome processes. We modified an existing decision-making paradigm (the Stoplight Task; Chein et al., 2011) to create a flexible laboratory measure of decision-making and outcome processing, including the ability to assess modulatory effects of safe versus risky decisions on reward-related outcome processes: the Yellow Light Game (YLG). We administered the YLG in the MRI scanner to 81 adolescents, ages 11-17 years, recruited from the community. Results showed that nucleus accumbens activation was enhanced for (1) risky > safe decisions, (2) positive > negative outcomes, and (3) outcomes following safe decisions compared to outcomes following risky decisions, regardless of whether these outcomes were positive or negative. Outcomes following risky decisions (compared to outcomes following safe decisions) were associated with enhanced activity in cortical midline structures. Furthermore, while there were no developmental differences in risk-taking behavior, more pubertally mature adolescents showed enhanced nucleus accumbens activation during positive > negative outcomes. These findings suggest that outcome processing is modulated by the types of decisions made by adolescents and highlight the importance of investigating processes involved in safe as well as risky decisions to better understand the adolescent tendency to take risks.

Rates of motorcycle helmet use and reasons for non-use among adults and children in Luang Prabang, Lao People's Democratic Republic

Background

Motorcycles make up 81 % of the total vehicle population and 74 % of road traffic deaths in Lao PDR. Helmets reduce the risk and severity of injuries resulting from motorcycle accidents by 72 %. Although Lao law mandates motorcycle helmet use among drivers and passengers, the prevalence of helmet use in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR is unknown. This project aimed to measure the prevalence of motorcycle helmet use among riders (i.e., drivers and passengers) in Luang Prabang.

Methods

An observational survey in Luang Prabang was conducted in February 2015 to measure the prevalence of motorcycle helmet use among drivers and passengers. Additionally, non-helmet wearing riders were surveyed to identify the reasons for helmet non-use.

Results

Of 1632 motorcycle riders observed, only 16.2 % wore helmets. Approximately 29 % of adults wore helmets while less than 1 % of all children wore helmets. When surveyed about attitudes towards helmet use, the majority of adult drivers indicated that they did not like how adult helmets feel or made them look. Additionally, almost half of motorcyclists who did not own child helmets reported that their child was too young to wear a helmet.

Conclusions

Our finding that children wear helmets at significantly lower rates compared to adults is consistent with findings from neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. Results of this study have implications for public health campaigns targeting helmet use, especially among children.

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Helicobacter pylori to selected agents by agar dilution method in Shiraz-Iran

PURPOSE

To assess the pattern of antimicrobial susceptibility profile of Helicobacter pylori isolates from patients with gastritis, duodenal ulcer (DU) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) residing in Shiraz, Iran.

METHODS

One hundred and six H. pylori isolates from patients with gastritis, DU and GERD undergoing endoscopy at our university hospitals and clinics were analysed for their antimicrobial susceptibility to metronidazole, clarithromycin, amoxicillin, co-amoxiclav, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin and furazolidone. The minimum inhibitory concentrations were determined by agar dilution method.

RESULTS

Overall H. pylori resistance rate was 72.6% to metronidazole, 9.4% to clarithromycin and furazolidone, 20.8% to amoxicillin and 4.7% to tetracycline and ciprofloxacin. No resistance to co-amoxiclav was detected among H. pylori isolates. No significant differences between antimicrobial resistance and clinical outcome were detected.

CONCLUSIONS

With regard to the increasing resistance of H. pylori isolates to various antibiotics, susceptibility testing of H. pylori isolates prior to the treatment of infection must be performed to achieve better eradication and to reduce the risk of selection of H. pylori resistant strains.

Modification of protein stability by introduction of disulfide bridges and prolines: geometric criteria for mutation sites

We define geometrical parameters to characterize disulfide bridges using x-ray crystal structure data on small molecules and use them to suggest replacements of amino acids by cysteines in order to introduce disulfide bridges to increase thermal stability in proteins. We also define geometric parameters to identify target amino acids for replacements by prolines in order to conserve desired structural attributes in the vicinity of disulfide mutations leading to further structural and thermal stability of proteins. The geometric criteria are applied to the serine protease, subtilisin, to model stereochemically favorable disulfide mutants without altering the active site geometry, implying conservation of native biological activity.

Preferential inhibition of 5-lipoxygenase activity by manoalide

Treatment of human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNLs) with micromolar concentrations of the anti-inflammatory drug manoalide inhibited production of leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and LTC4/LTD4 in response to the calcium ionophore A23187. In an attempt to further define the mechanism(s) of action of this agent, we have examined its interaction with several lipoxygenase enzymes. In RBL-1 cells, manoalide inhibited 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) activity with an approximate IC50 of 0.3 microM. This was equipotent in our system with the known lipoxygenase inhibitor nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA). Manoalide was virtually inactive, however, against 12-lipoxygenase activity in both human platelets and mouse epidermis, with little inhibition seen at concentrations up to 100 microM. Manoalide showed some activity against soybean lipoxygenase, although it was 30- to 50-fold less potent than as an inhibitor of the 5-lipoxygenase enzyme. These data indicate that manoalide is a selective 5-LO inhibitor and suggest the possibility that its anti-inflammatory actions may be due, at least in part, to inhibition of leukotriene synthesis.

Stimulation of endogenous cyclic AMP levels in ciliary body by SK&F 82526, a novel dopamine receptor agonist

The effect of dopamine and SK&F 82526 on cyclic AMP metabolism in ocular tissues has been examined. The in vitro incubation of human and bovine ciliary body with these agonists produced a dose-dependent increase in endogenous levels of cyclic AMP. This stimulation was blocked by the selective DA1 receptor antagonist SK&F 83566, but not by the beta-receptor antagonist propranolol. The response to SK&F 82526 was stereoselective, with SK&F R-82526 being approximately 100 times more potent than SK&F S-82526 in this preparation. This stimulation of ciliary body cyclic AMP content was not observed in the rabbit or cat, nor was it seen in human, bovine or rabbit iris tissue. These data suggest that adenylate cyclase linked dopamine receptors are present in both human and bovine ciliary body.