•Suicidal ideation (SI) decreased in six months in a sample of depressed adolescents.•Decreased severity of SI is associated with increased coherence of salience network.•Executive control and ...default mode networks are not associated with reduction in SI.•The salience network may uniquely influence changes in SI in depressed adolescents.
Suicidal ideation (SI) is an important predictor of suicide attempt, yet SI is difficult to predict. Given that SI begins in adolescence when brain networks are maturing, it is important to understand associations between network functioning and changes in severity of SI.
Thirty-three depressed adolescents were administered the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale to assess SI and completed resting-state fMRI at baseline (T1) and 6 months later (T2). We computed coherence in the executive control (ECN), default mode (DMN), salience (SN), and non-relevant noise networks and then examined the association between changes in brain network coherence and changes in SI severity from T1 to T2.
A greater reduction in severity of SI was associated with a stronger increase in SN coherence from T1 to T2. There were no associations between the other networks and SI.
We cannot generalize our findings to more psychiatrically diverse samples. More time-points are necessary to understand the trajectory of SI and SN coherence change.
Our finding that reductions in SI are associated with increases in SN coherence extends previous cross-sectional results documenting a negative association between SI severity and SN coherence. The SN is involved in coordinating activation of ECN and DMN in response to salient information. Given this regulatory role of the SN, the association between SN coherence and SI suggests that adolescents with reduced SN coherence might more easily engage in harmful thoughts. Thus, the SN may be particularly relevant as a target for treatment applications in depressed adolescents.
A key objective in the field of translational psychiatry over the past few decades has been to identify the brain correlates of major depressive disorder (MDD). Identifying measurable indicators of ...brain processes associated with MDD could facilitate the detection of individuals at risk, and the development of novel treatments, the monitoring of treatment effects, and predicting who might benefit most from treatments that target specific brain mechanisms. However, despite intensive neuroimaging research towards this effort, underpowered studies and a lack of reproducible findings have hindered progress. Here, we discuss the work of the ENIGMA Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Consortium, which was established to address issues of poor replication, unreliable results, and overestimation of effect sizes in previous studies. The ENIGMA MDD Consortium currently includes data from 45 MDD study cohorts from 14 countries across six continents. The primary aim of ENIGMA MDD is to identify structural and functional brain alterations associated with MDD that can be reliably detected and replicated across cohorts worldwide. A secondary goal is to investigate how demographic, genetic, clinical, psychological, and environmental factors affect these associations. In this review, we summarize findings of the ENIGMA MDD disease working group to date and discuss future directions. We also highlight the challenges and benefits of large-scale data sharing for mental health research.
Elevated levels of systemic inflammation are associated with altered reward-related brain function in ventral striatal areas of the brain like the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). In adolescents, ...cross-sectional research indicates that exposure to early life stress (ELS) can moderate the relation between inflammation and neural activation, which may contribute to atypical reward function; however, no studies have tested whether this moderation by ELS of neuroimmune associations persists over time. Here, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis and the first exploratory longitudinal analysis testing whether cumulative severity of ELS moderates the association of systemic inflammation with reward-related processing in the NAcc in adolescents (n = 104; 58F/46M; MSD age = 16.001.45 years; range = 13.07-19.86 years). For the cross-sectional analysis, we modeled a statistical interaction between ELS and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) predicting NAcc activation during the anticipation and outcome phases of a monetary reward task. We found that higher CRP was associated with blunted NAcc activation during the outcome of reward in youth who experienced higher levels of ELS (β = -0.31; p = 0.006). For the longitudinal analysis, we modeled an interaction between ELS and change in CRP predicting change in NAcc activation across 2 years. This analysis similarly showed that increasing CRP over time was associated with decreasing NAcc during reward outcomes in youth who experienced higher levels of ELS (β = -0.47; p = 0.022). Both findings support contemporary theoretical frameworks involving associations among inflammation, reward-related brain function, and ELS exposure, and suggest that experiencing ELS can have significant and enduring effects on neuroimmune function and adolescent neurodevelopment.
Background
While identifying risk factors for adolescent depression is critical for early prevention and intervention, most studies have sought to understand the role of isolated factors rather than ...across a broad set of factors. Here, we sought to examine multi‐level factors that maximize the prediction of depression symptoms in US children participating in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.
Methods
A total of 7,995 participants from ABCD (version 3.0 release) provided complete data at baseline and 1‐year follow‐up data. Depression symptoms were measured with the Child Behavior Checklist. Predictive features included child demographic, environmental, and structural and resting‐state fMRI variables, parental depression history and demographic characteristics. We used linear (elastic net regression, EN) and non‐linear (gradient‐boosted trees, GBT) predictive models to identify which set of features maximized prediction of depression symptoms at baseline and, separately, at 1‐year follow‐up.
Results
Both linear and non‐linear models achieved comparable results for predicting baseline (EN: MAE = 3.757; R2 = 0.156; GBT: MAE = 3.761; R2 = 0.147) and 1‐year follow‐up (EN: MAE = 4.255; R2 = 0.103; GBT: MAE = 4.262; R2 = 0.089) depression. Parental history of depression, greater family conflict, and shorter child sleep duration were among the top predictors of concurrent and future child depression symptoms across both models. Although resting‐state fMRI features were relatively weaker predictors, functional connectivity of the caudate was consistently the strongest neural feature associated with depression symptoms at both timepoints.
Conclusions
Consistent with prior research, parental mental health, family environment, and child sleep quality are important risk factors for youth depression. Functional connectivity of the caudate is a relatively weaker predictor of depression symptoms but may represent a biomarker for depression risk.
Suicidal ideation rates rise precipitously in adolescence, contributing to risk for attempts. Although researchers are beginning to explore the brain basis of attempts in depressed adolescents, none ...have focused on the basis of ideation, which has implications for prevention. This study examined the association between intrinsic neural network coherence and the severity of suicidal ideation in depressed adolescents.
Forty adolescents diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder were administered the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale and underwent resting-state fMRI. We quantified within-network coherence in the executive control (ECN), default mode (DMN), and salience (SN) networks, and in a non-relevant network consisting of noise signal. We associated coherence in each of these networks with the greatest lifetime severity of suicidal ideation experienced, covarying for motion, age of depression onset, and severity of current depressive and anxious symptoms.
Lower coherence in the left ECN, anterior DMN, and SN were independently associated with greater lifetime severity of suicidal ideation. When including all three significant networks and covariates in a single model, only the left ECN significantly predicted suicidal ideation.
Studies with a larger sample size are needed to verify our findings.
Our finding of hypoconnectivity in multiple networks extends emerging evidence for hypoconnectivity in adolescent suicidality and is consistent with theoretical conceptualizations of suicidal ideation as a complex set of cognitions associated with cognitive control, self-referential thinking, and processing salient information. While multiple networks could be targets for effective early interventions, those targeting ECN functionality (cognitive control) may be particularly beneficial.
Display omitted
•The association between neural network coherence and lifetime severity of suicidal ideation was examined.•Lower coherence in executive control, default mode, and salience network were each associated with higher suicidal ideation.•When including all three networks in a single model, only executive control network was associated with suicidal ideation.
Despite evidence that early life adversity (ELA) affects mental health in adolescence, we know little about sex differences in how distinct dimensions of adversity affect development and their ...corresponding effects on mental health. In this three-wave longitudinal study, 209 participants (118 females; ages 9-13 years at baseline) provided objective (salivary hormones, BMI, age of menarche) and subjective (perceived gonadal and adrenal status) measures of puberty and physical development, and reported on levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms at all timepoints. Participants also reported lifetime exposure to three distinct types of ELA: deprivation, threat, and unpredictability. Using generalized additive mixed models, we tested within each sex whether dimensions of adversity were associated with longitudinal changes in measures of pubertal and physical development, and whether these indices of development were associated with trajectories of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In females, experiences of threat and unpredictability were significantly associated with earlier pubertal timing (e.g., age of menarche) whereas experiences of deprivation were associated with steeper increases in BMI; further, faster pubertal tempo (i.e., steeper increases in pubertal stage) was associated with increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In males, however, ELA was not associated with any measures of pubertal or physical development or with symptoms. Together, our results suggest that adverse experiences during early life have sex-selective consequences for pubertal and physical maturation and mental health trajectories in ways that may elucidate why females are at higher risk for mental health difficulties during puberty, particularly following exposure to unpredictable and threatening experiences of adversity.
PDF
