Home alone: Social functioning as a transdiagnostic marker of mental health in youth, exploring retrospective and daily life measurements.

PURPOSE: Early detection and intervention of mental health problems in youth are topical given that mental disorders often start early in life. Young people with emerging mental disorders however, often present with non-specific, fluctuating symptoms. Recent reports indicate a decline in social functioning (SF) as an early sign of specific emerging mental disorders such as depression or anxiety, making SF a favorable transdiagnostic approach for earlier detection and intervention. Our aim was to investigate the value of SF in relation to transdiagnostic symptoms, and as a predictor of psychopathology over time, while exploring traditional retrospective versus innovative daily diary measurements of SF in youth. METHOD: Participants (N = 75) were 16-25 years of age and presented early stage psychiatric symptomatology. Psychiatric symptoms, including anxiety and depression, as well as SF -both in retrospect and in daily life- were assessed at two time points and analyzed cross-sectionally and longitudinally. RESULTS: A significant and negative association between SF and all psychiatric symptoms was found, and SF was a significant predictor of change in general psychiatric symptoms over time. Results were only significant when SF was measured traditionally retrospective. CONCLUSION: This study confirms a distinct relation between SF and transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms in youth, even in a (sub)clinical population, and points towards SF as a predictor of transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms. Further research is needed to learn more about the added value of daily life versus retrospective measurements.

From laboratory to life: associating brain reward processing with real-life motivated behaviour and symptoms of depression in non-help-seeking young adults.

BACKGROUND: Depression has been associated with abnormalities in neural underpinnings of Reward Learning (RL). However, inconsistencies have emerged, possibly owing to medication effects. Additionally, it remains unclear how neural RL signals relate to real-life behaviour. The current study, therefore, examined neural RL signals in young, mildly to moderately depressed - but non-help-seeking and unmedicated - individuals and how these signals are associated with depressive symptoms and real-life motivated behaviour. METHODS: Individuals with symptoms along the depression continuum (n = 87) were recruited from the community. They performed an RL task during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and were assessed with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), completing short questionnaires on emotions and behaviours up to 10 times/day for 15 days. Q-learning model-derived Reward Prediction Errors (RPEs) were examined in striatal areas, and subsequently associated with depressive symptoms and an ESM measure capturing (non-linearly) how anticipation of reward experience corresponds to actual reward experience later on. RESULTS: Significant RPE signals were found in the striatum, insula, amygdala, hippocampus, frontal and occipital cortices. Region-of-interest analyses revealed a significant association between RPE signals and (a) self-reported depressive symptoms in the right nucleus accumbens (b = -0.017, p = 0.006) and putamen (b = -0.013, p = .012); and (b) the quadratic ESM variable in the left (b = 0.010, p = .010) and right (b = 0.026, p = 0.011) nucleus accumbens and right putamen (b = 0.047, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Striatal RPE signals are disrupted along the depression continuum. Moreover, they are associated with reward-related behaviour in real-life, suggesting that real-life coupling of reward anticipation and engagement in rewarding activities might be a relevant target of psychological therapies for depression.