To identify the shared neuroimaging signature of gait slowing and cognitive impairment.
We assessed a cohort of older adults (n = 175, mean age 73 years, 57% female, 65% white) with repeated measures ...of gait speed over 14 years, MRI for gray matter volume (GMV) at year 10 or 11, and adjudicated cognitive status at year 14. Gait slowing was calculated by bayesian slopes corrected for intercepts, with higher values indicating faster decline. GMV was normalized to intracranial volume, with lower values indicating greater atrophy for 10 regions of interest (hippocampus, anterior and posterior cingulate, primary and supplementary motor cortices, posterior parietal lobe, middle frontal lobe, caudate, putamen, pallidum). Nonparametric correlations adjusted for demographics, comorbidities, muscle strength, and knee pain assessed associations of time to walk with GMV. Logistic regression models calculated odds ratios (ORs) of gait slowing with dementia or mild cognitive impairment with and without adjustment for GMV.
Gait slowing was associated with cognitive impairment at year 14 (OR per 0.1 s/y slowing 1.47; 95% confidence interval 1.04-2.07). The right hippocampus was the only region that was related to both gait slowing (ρ = -0.16,
= 0.03) and cognitive impairment (OR 0.17,
= 0.009). Adjustment for right hippocampal volume attenuated the association of gait slowing with cognitive impairment by 23%.
The association between gait slowing and cognitive impairment is supported by a shared neural substrate that includes a smaller right hippocampus. This finding underscores the value of long-term gait slowing as an early indicator of dementia risk.
High compliance is a priority for successful ecological momentary assessment (EMA) research, but meta-analyses of between-study differences show that reasons for missed prompts remain unclear. We ...examined compliance data from a 14-week, 182-survey EMA study of undergraduate alcohol use to test differences over time and across survey types between participants with better and worse compliance rates, and to evaluate the impact of incentives on ongoing participation. Participants were N = 196 students (65.8% female; Mage = 20.6). Overall compliance was 76.5%, declining gradually from 88.9% to 70% over 14 weeks. Declines were faster in participants with lower overall compliance, but we found no demographic, personality, mental health, or substance use differences between participants with better versus worse compliance rates. Compliance varied by survey type, and unannounced bonus incentives did not impact compliance rates. Participants completed fewer surveys the week after winning a gift card. We offer recommendations for designing future EMA studies.
Three studies examine whether individuals might use mental accounting heuristics in helping decisions, budgeting their prosocial effort in similar ways to how money is budgeted. In a hypothetical ...scenario study (N = 283), participants who imagined that they previously helped someone of a specific social category (e.g., “family,” “colleagues”) were less willing to help someone of that category again. Similarly, when reporting actual instances of day-to-day help in a diary study (N = 443), having helped more than usual in a social category yesterday was associated with less effort and less time spent on helping in the same category today. In contrast, helping more than usual in other social categories did not reduce helping today. Finally, a scenario study (N = 489) suggested that the mental accounting effect in helping decisions may, in part, be explained by perceived utility of help (helping others in the same social category is seen as less rewarding).
Objective: Although recent statistical and computational developments allow for the empirical testing of psychological theories in ways not previously possible, one particularly vexing challenge ...remains: how to optimally model the prospective, reciprocal relations between 2 constructs as they developmentally unfold over time. Several analytic methods currently exist that attempt to model these types of relations, and each approach is successful to varying degrees. However, none provide the unambiguous separation over time of between-person and within-person components of stability and change, components that are often hypothesized to exist in the psychological sciences. Our goal in this article is to propose and demonstrate a novel extension of the multivariate latent curve model to allow for the disaggregation of these effects. Method: We begin with a review of the standard latent curve models and describe how these primarily capture between-person differences in change. We then extend this model to allow for regression structures among the time-specific residuals to capture within-person differences in change. Results: We demonstrate this model using an artificial data set generated to mimic the developmental relation between alcohol use and depressive symptomatology spanning 5 repeated measures. Conclusions: We obtain a specificity of results from the proposed analytic strategy that is not available from other existing methodologies. We conclude with potential limitations of our approach and directions for future research.
People have multiple opportunities to act prosocial any given day but only limited resources to do so (e.g. time, effort and money they are willing to invest). We test whether people prefer to ...diversify their prosocial efforts across different types of help: casual help, direct help, indirect help and emotional support. In two daily diary studies (total N = 711), we examine whether previous prosocial behaviour affects subsequent prosocial behaviour for the same or other types of prosocial behaviour. We found that day‐to‐day prosocial behaviours reflected a diversified helping pattern. Participants were less likely to help the same way (i.e. the same type of prosocial behaviour) on subsequent days and more likely to help in different ways (i.e. a different type of prosocial behaviour). This tendency did not extend to casual help in Study 2, implying that the next day reduction in doing the same type of prosocial behaviour is limited to prosocial behaviours that are at least somewhat effortful or time consuming.
Several multivariate models are motivated to answer similar developmental questions regarding within-person (intraindividual) effects between 2 or more constructs over time, yet the within-person ...effects tested by each model are distinct. In this article, the authors clarify the types of within-person inferences that can be made from each model. Whereas previous research has focused on detecting whether within-person effects exist over development, the present work can be used to understand the nature of these relationships. The authors compare each modeling approach using an example investigating the concurrent development of mother-child closeness and mother-child conflict. The findings demonstrate that fundamentally different conclusions about developmental processes may be reached depending on which model is used, and a framework is demonstrated for making sense of seemingly contradictory findings.
Objective
Longitudinal studies of children diagnosed with ADHD report widely ranging ADHD persistence rates in adulthood (5–75%). This study documents how information source (parent vs. self‐report), ...method (rating scale vs. interview), and symptom threshold (DSM vs. norm‐based) influence reported ADHD persistence rates in adulthood.
Method
Five hundred seventy‐nine children were diagnosed with DSM‐IV ADHD‐Combined Type at baseline (ages 7.0–9.9 years) 289 classmates served as a local normative comparison group (LNCG), 476 and 241 of whom respectively were evaluated in adulthood (Mean Age = 24.7). Parent and self‐reports of symptoms and impairment on rating scales and structured interviews were used to investigate ADHD persistence in adulthood.
Results
Persistence rates were higher when using parent rather than self‐reports, structured interviews rather than rating scales (for self‐report but not parent report), and a norm‐based (NB) threshold of 4 symptoms rather than DSM criteria. Receiver‐Operating Characteristics (ROC) analyses revealed that sensitivity and specificity were optimized by combining parent and self‐reports on a rating scale and applying a NB threshold.
Conclusion
The interview format optimizes young adult self‐reporting when parent reports are not available. However, the combination of parent and self‐reports from rating scales, using an ‘or’ rule and a NB threshold optimized the balance between sensitivity and specificity. With this definition, 60% of the ADHD group demonstrated symptom persistence and 41% met both symptom and impairment criteria in adulthood.
Read the Commentary on this article at doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12758
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Self-reported depressive experiences are common among university students. However, most studies assessing depression in university students are cross-sectional, limiting our understanding of when in ...the academic year risk for depression is greatest and when interventions may be most needed. We examined within-person change in depressive symptoms from September to April. Study 1 (
N =
198; 57% female; 72% white;
M
age = 18.4): Depressive symptoms rose from September, peaked in December, and fell across the second semester. The rise in depressive symptoms was associated with higher perceived stress in December. Study 2 (
N
= 267; 78.7% female; 67.87% white;
M
age = 21.25): Depressive symptoms peaked in December and covaried within persons with perceived stress and academic demands. The results have implications for understanding when and for whom there is increased risk for depressive experiences among university students.
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