Prevalence of auditory hallucinations in Norwegian adolescents: results from a population-based study.

Knowing the prevalence and characteristics of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in adolescents is important for estimations of need for mental health care and assessment of psychosis risk. In this report we assess the prevalence of AVH in a population-based sample of 16-19 years old Norwegian adolescents (n = 9,646, 46.4% male) using two items assessing AVH (from the extended Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale). The prevalence of hearing a voice speaking thoughts aloud was 10.6%. The prevalence of being troubled by voices was 5.3%, showing that negative emotionality about AVH is less frequent than the experience of hearing voices. Female respondents had slightly increased risk for being troubled by voices than males (odds ratio = 1.3), while age did not modulate prevalence. This AVH prevalence is in line with earlier reports in smaller samples of adolescents and indicates that AVH are not uncommon in this period of life. Further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate the value of AVH in predicting psychiatric disorder.

Influence of assessment instrument on ADHD diagnosis.

We compared four instruments commonly used to screen for and diagnose Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. The Bergen Child Study included a DSM-IV ADHD symptom list and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as screen in Phase one. Phase two included the parent Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA), whereas Phase three comprised in-depth clinical assessment, including the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Aged Children (K-SADS). We compared ADHD as diagnosed by the four instruments in the children with normal intellectual functioning participating in all three phases (N = 234). The DSM-IV ADHD symptom list showed moderate agreement with all other instruments (κ = 0.53-0.57), whereas there was fair agreement between the K-SADS-DAWBA (κ = 0.31) and between SDQ-DAWBA (κ = 0.33). The DAWBA diagnosed fewer children with ADHD than did the other instruments. Implications for use of the instruments are discussed.

Posttraumatic responses to the July 22, 2011 Oslo Terror among Norwegian high school students.

The July 22, 2011, Oslo Terror was defined as a national disaster. Former studies on terror attacks and mass shootings have shown elevated levels of posttraumatic complaints both in direct victims and in general populations. Little is known about how such extreme events in a generally safe society such as Norway would affect an adolescent population. This study examines posttraumatic stress reactions and changes in worldview in relationship to risk factors among 10,220 high school students using data from the ung@hordaland survey. One out of 5 respondents knew someone directly exposed, 55.7% experienced the events to some extent as threatening to their own or their close ones' lives, and 79.9% reported their worldview to be changed. For posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) DSM IV criteria, 0.8% reported substantial symptoms of reexperiencing (Criterion B), 4.9% of avoidance (Criterion C), and 1.1% of hyperarousal (Criterion D). Greater personal proximity to the events, higher levels of perceived life threat, and being a female or an immigrant predicted higher levels of PTSD symptom distress. Results indicate that the terror events made a deep impression on Norwegian adolescents, but without causing markedly elevated levels of PTSD symptomatology in the general young population.

Substance-Related Problems in Adolescents with ADHD-Diagnoses: The Importance of Self-Reported Conduct Problems.

BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a known risk factor for substance-related problems (SRP) during adolescence, but the nature of this relationship and the importance of co-occurring conduct problems are not fully understood. METHODS: Data stem from a linked dataset between a large population-based survey conducted in 2012 of Norwegian adolescents aged 16 to 19, and registry-based data from specialized child and adolescent mental health services (n = 9,411). RESULTS: Adolescents with "ADHD + high conduct problems" had increased risk of SRP (odds ratios = 2.37-10.14). Adolescents with "ADHD only" had very similar risk of SRP as adolescents from the general population with low symptoms of conduct problems. Relative to boys, girls with "ADHD + high conduct problems" appeared to have somewhat higher risk for SRP. CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that the risk for SRP among adolescent with ADHD is largely driven by co-existing conduct problems.

An Exploratory Investigation of Goal Management Training in Adults With ADHD: Improvements in Inhibition and Everyday Functioning.

Background: Adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are predominantly treated with medication. However, there is also a need for effective, psychologically based interventions. As ADHD is strongly associated with reduced inhibitory control, cognitive remediation approaches should be efficient. Goal management training (GMT) aims at enhancing inhibitory control and has shown positive effects on inhibitory control in non-ADHD patient groups. The aim of the current study was to explore whether GMT would specifically enhance inhibitory control in adults with ADHD, and if such an enhancement would lead to secondary improvements in self-reported everyday functioning. Methods: Twenty-one participants with ADHD (mean age: 39.05 years [SD 11.93]) completed the intervention and assessments pre-, post- and 6 months after the intervention. Measures included neuropsychological tests and self-report questionnaires pertaining to cognitive- and executive functioning, emotion regulation, quality of life, and ADHD symptoms. Results: Compared to baseline, the participants showed enhanced inhibitory control on performance-based measures at post-assessment and 6-month follow-up. The participants also reported increased productivity and reduced cognitive difficulties in everyday life at both assessments post-treatment, as well as improvements in aspects of emotion regulation and a reduction in the severity of core ADHD-symptoms at 6-month follow-up. Conclusion: Our exploratory study showed that GMT seems to specifically improve one of the core executive dysfunctions in ADHD, namely inhibitory control, with a positive effect lasting at least 6 months post-treatment. The adults with ADHD also reported improved self-regulation in their everyday life after completing GMT, providing strong arguments for further investigations of GMT as a treatment option for this group of adults. Clinical Trial Registration: The study is registered under ISRCTN.com (ISRCTN91988877; https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN91988877).

Examining the Subacute Effects of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Using a Traditional and Computerized Neuropsychological Test Battery.

This study investigates subacute cognitive effects of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) in the Trondheim Mild TBI Study, as measured, in part, by the neuropsychological test battery of the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI (CENTER-TBI) program, including computerized tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) and traditional paper-and-pencil tests. We investigated whether cognitive function was associated with injury severity: intracranial traumatic lesions on neuroimaging, witnessed loss of consciousness (LOC), or post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) >1 h. Further, we explored which of the tests in the CENTER-TBI battery might be associated with the largest subacute effects of MTBI (i.e., at 2 weeks post-injury). We recruited 177 patients with MTBI (16-59 years of age) from a regional trauma center and an outpatient clinic,79 trauma control participants, and 81 community control participants. The MTBI group differed from community controls only on one traditional test of processing speed (coding; p = 0.009, Cliff's delta [Δ] = 0.20). Patients with intracranial abnormalities performed worse than those without on a traditional test (phonemic verbal fluency; p = 0.043, Δ = 0.27), and patients with LOC performed differently on the Attention Switching Task from the CANTAB (p = 0.020, Δ = -0.20). Patients with PTA >1 h performed worse than those with <1 h on 10 measures, from traditional tests and the CANTAB (Δ = 0.33-0.20), likely attributable, at least in part, to pre-existing differences in intellectual functioning between groups. In general, those with MTBI had good neuropsychological outcome 2 weeks after injury and no particular CENTER-TBI computerized or traditional tests seemed to be more sensitive to subtle cognitive deficits.

Emotional symptoms in inattentive primary school children: a population-based study.

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigates teacher and parent reports of inattention and emotional symptoms in 6,229 primary school children. METHOD: The assessment included the Emotional Symptoms subscale and the Impact scale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the inattention items from the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham IV Questionnaire. RESULTS: Children defined as inattentive showed a high risk of being defined as high scorers on the Emotional Symptoms subscale. A high score on both the Inattention and Emotional Symptoms subscales was associated with a high impact score. Teachers but not parents reported a higher risk of such co-occurrence of symptoms in girls than in boys. CONCLUSION: Inattentive children should be screened for emotional problems by use of the multi-informants method.

Lack of association of the rs1344706 ZNF804A variant with cognitive functions and DTI indices of white matter microstructure in two independent healthy populations.

The rs1344706 single nucleotide polymorphism within intron 2 of the ZNF804A gene is strongly associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This variant has also been associated in some studies with a range of cognitive and neuroimaging phenotypes, but several studies have reported no effect on the same phenotypes in other samples. Here, we genotyped 670 healthy adult Norwegian subjects and 1753 healthy adult Swedish subjects for rs1344706, and tested for associations with cognitive phenotypes including general intellectual abilities, memory functions and cognitive inhibition. We also tested whether rs1344706 is associated with white matter microstructural properties using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data from 250 to 340 of the Norwegian and Swedish subjects, respectively. Whole-brain voxel-wise statistical modeling of the effect of the ZNF804A variant on two DTI indices, fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD), was performed using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS), and commonly reported effect sizes were calculated within several large-scale white matter pathways based on neuroanatomical atlases. No significant associations were found between rs1344706 and the cognitive traits or white matter microstructure. We conclude that the rs1344706 SNP has no significant effect on these phenotypes in our two reasonably powered samples.

Oppositional defiant disorder-gender differences in co-occurring symptoms of mental health problems in a general population of children.

Informant- and gender-specific characteristics of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and how these might relate to patterns of comorbidity need to be further clarified. We collected data from 7,007 children (aged 7-9) who participated in the Bergen Child Study (BCS), an ongoing population-based study of children's development and mental health. A questionnaire containing the DSM-IV behavioral descriptions of ODD was distributed to parents and teachers. Co-occurring symptoms of mental health problems were measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The boys (n = 122) and girls (n = 41) with symptomatic ODD had an increased risk of co-occurring emotional symptoms, hyperactivity or inattention and peer problems, as compared to their peers without symptomatic ODD. The impact of symptomatic ODD was higher for boys than girls in teacher reported SDQ ratings, except for emotional symptoms. There were no significant interaction effects of gender in parent SDQ ratings. Our results are contrary to the gender paradox hypothesis, which states that co-occurring symptoms of mental health problems are more frequent among girls with ODD as compared to boys with ODD.

Invisible expressions evoke core impressions.

Participants viewed "hybrid" faces that showed a facial expression (anger, fear, happiness, or sadness) only in the lowest spatial frequency (1-6 cycles/image), which was blended with the same face's neutral expression in the rest of the bandwidth (7-128 cycles/image). Participants rated the portrayed persons (compared to neutral images) as "friendly" when the lowest spatial frequencies showed a positive expression and "unfriendly" when the lowest spatial frequencies showed negative expressions. In contrast, the same hybrid images were explicitly judged as neutral and their "hidden" emotional expressions could not be explicitly recognized, as also confirmed by d' sensitivity measures. Finally, one patient (SS) who had the left anterior temporal lobe surgically resected (including the amygdala), failed to show the above described unconscious effects on friendliness judgments when viewing "afraid" and "sad" hybrid faces. We conclude that the lowest spatial frequencies of facial expressions can evoke "core" emotions without knowledge or awareness of a specific emotion but these core emotions can convey a clear "impression" of a person's character.

The effect of a REM sleep deprivation procedure on different aspects of memory function in humans.

Previous studies have suggested that memory is dependent on the occurrence of REM sleep. Research has mainly focused on two distinct types of memory function, declarative and procedural, and it seems that the latter may more directly depend on REM sleep. Memory consolidation has been more investigated than acquisition, maintenance, and recall, despite the fact that sleep may affect flow of information into/from storage. Moreover, tests have often been limited to stimuli within only one modality (usually visual or verbal). This study aimed to clarify the role of REM sleep in memory by investigating aspects of memory function, processing, and modality in the same experimental setting. Tests of acquisition and consolidation of multiple aspects of memory function within the visual and verbal modalities were administrated to subjects before and after REM sleep deprivation. Results show that test performance was not affected by REM sleep deprivation.