An analysis of national media coverage of a parental leave reform investigating sentiment, semantics and contributors.

While paid leave for fathers after the birth of a child has become increasingly available, mothers still take most of the parental leave. A recent European Union (EU) reform addresses the unequal sharing of leave between parents via earmarking of paid, non-shareable leave to each parent. Given that the reform's success will depend on uptake by families, we analysed Danish national media coverage to understand how journalists were writing about the reform. We assessed the sentiment and semantics of leave reform coverage compared to general news from the same period, also considering the inferred journalist gender and newspaper political orientation. Parental leave reform articles were slightly more emotional than general news, independent of who authored the article, or the newspaper where it was published. We found a robust difference in the semantics of how female journalists wrote about the reform, relative to male journalists, and that female journalists contributed to media coverage at a higher-than-expected rate. The tendency for media coverage to be written with a non-neutral sentiment can be understood in terms of the enduring political tensions over gender equality, the role of the EU and families' rights to self-organization. That female journalists over-contributed to media coverage is interesting in understanding topic assignments or interest in parental leave.

Seeking help for mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal analysis of adults' experiences with digital technologies and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about dramatic changes in how patients access healthcare from its outset. Lockdown restrictions and remote working led to a proliferation of digital technologies and services, which also impacted mental health provisions. Against the backdrop of new and changing support services, along with an unprecedented emphasis on mental health, relatively little is known about how adults sought out and received support for their mental health during this period. With a sample of 27,574 adults assessed longitudinally online over 12 months of the pandemic in the UK, we analysed reports of help-seeking for mental health, as well as sources of treatment or support and the perceived helpfulness of treatments received. We observed that the proportions of participants who reported seeking help remained relatively consistent throughout the 12-month period (ranging from 12.6% to 17.0%). Online talking therapies were among the most frequently sought sources (15.3%), whereas online self-guided treatments were among the least frequently sought sources (5%). Telephone lines, both NHS and non-governmental, had marked treatment 'gaps'. These treatment gaps, where individuals sought treatment but did not receive it, were especially evident for men and older adults. Our findings underscore online talking therapies as being a widely-sought and helpful source of mental health support. This is important given the current global need for accessible treatment options.

Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms across pregnancy and the postnatal period: Modest associations between depression symptoms and infant sleep outcomes.

Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms are common across the perinatal period and are associated with a raised risk for adverse child outcomes. While substantial evidence exists for child outcomes such as behaviour, language and cognition, infant sleep has been less studied. In this longitudinal study, we examined the association between maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety and mother-reported infant sleep at 6 and 12 months. Across the four infant sleep outcomes, total sleep time, sleep onset latency, number of awakenings and a maternal perception variable, we found modest effects for concomitant depression symptoms. There were almost no additional effects for anxiety symptoms beyond that already accounted for by depression. Using trajectory modelling of maternal symptoms at five time points, we found more robust effects for maternal groups with postnatally emerging symptoms over prenatally present symptoms across all four sleep outcomes. Our strongest finding was that mothers with postnatal depression symptoms were more likely to perceive their infant's sleep as problematic compared with all other mothers. Where we found effects on duration-based infant sleep outcomes overall, these were small and clearest for depressive symptoms over anxiety symptoms. For both nighttime awakenings and perception of sleep as a problem, effects were apparent only for mothers in the postnatal symptom groups, and not for prenatal symptoms, at both infant ages six and 12 months. Our sample was a relatively high-socioeconomic group with low symptoms overall, and findings may not generalize to more vulnerable populations.

Measuring Cognitive Abilities in the Wild: Validating a Population-Scale Game-Based Cognitive Assessment.

Rapid individual cognitive phenotyping holds the potential to revolutionize domains as wide-ranging as personalized learning, employment practices, and precision psychiatry. Going beyond limitations imposed by traditional lab-based experiments, new efforts have been underway toward greater ecological validity and participant diversity to capture the full range of individual differences in cognitive abilities and behaviors across the general population. Building on this, we developed Skill Lab, a novel game-based tool that simultaneously assesses a broad suite of cognitive abilities while providing an engaging narrative. Skill Lab consists of six mini-games as well as 14 established cognitive ability tasks. Using a popular citizen science platform (N = 10,725), we conducted a comprehensive validation in the wild of a game-based cognitive assessment suite. Based on the game and validation task data, we constructed reliable models to simultaneously predict eight cognitive abilities based on the users' in-game behavior. Follow-up validation tests revealed that the models can discriminate nuances contained within each separate cognitive ability as well as capture a shared main factor of generalized cognitive ability. Our game-based measures are five times faster to complete than the equivalent task-based measures and replicate previous findings on the decline of certain cognitive abilities with age in our large cross-sectional population sample (N = 6369). Taken together, our results demonstrate the feasibility of rapid in-the-wild systematic assessment of cognitive abilities as a promising first step toward population-scale benchmarking and individualized mental health diagnostics.

Predictors of a weak antibody response to COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize the antibody response to COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and identify predictors of poor response. METHODS: SLE patients who are followed at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Lupus Cohort (BID-LC) were enrolled. SARS-CoV-2 IgG Spike antibody was measured in patients who received two doses of either the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) or the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) COVID-19 vaccine (n = 62). We defined non-responders as patients with an IgG Spike antibody titer less than two-fold (< 2) the index value of the test and responders as patients with antibody levels greater or equal to two-fold (≥ 2). A web-based survey was used to collect information regarding immunosuppressive medication use and SLE flares after vaccination. RESULTS: In our cohort of lupus patients, 76% were vaccine responders. The use of two or more immunosuppressive drugs was associated with being a non-responder (Odds Ratio 5.26; 95% CI 1.23-22.34, p = 0.02). Both Belimumab use and higher Prednisone dose were associated with vaccine non-response (p = 0.04 and p = 0.04). The non-responder group had higher mean levels of serum IL-18 than the responder group (p = 0.04) as well as lower C3 levels (p = 0.01). Lupus flares and breakthrough infections were uncommon post-vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Immunosuppressive medications have a negative impact on vaccine humoral response in SLE individuals. We observed a trend towards vaccine no-response in BNT162b2 recipients and a relationship between IL-18 and impaired antibody response that merits further investigation.

The dark side of fear expression: Infant crying as a trigger for maladaptive parental responses.

While infant fearfulness, and its expression via crying, may have been adaptive in our evolutionary history, for modern parents, crying can be challenging to respond to. We discuss how and why prolonged crying can raise the risk for difficulties with adult care. Given that crying is the most-reported trigger for shaking, its potential to elicit maladaptive responses should not be overlooked.

Prenatal Stress and the Developing Brain: Postnatal Environments Promoting Resilience.

Heightened maternal stress during pregnancy is associated with atypical brain development and an elevated risk for psychopathology in offspring. Supportive environments during early postnatal life may promote brain development and reverse atypical developmental trajectories induced by prenatal stress. We reviewed studies focused on the role of key early environmental factors in moderating associations between prenatal stress exposure and infant brain and neurocognitive outcomes. Specifically, we focused on the associations between parental caregiving quality, environmental enrichment, social support, and socioeconomic status with infant brain and neurocognitive outcomes. We examined the evidence that these factors may moderate the effects of prenatal stress on the developing brain. Complementing findings from translational models, human research suggests that high-quality early postnatal environments are associated with indices of infant neurodevelopment that have also been associated with prenatal stress, such as hippocampal volume and frontolimbic connectivity. Human studies also suggest that maternal sensitivity and higher socioeconomic status may attenuate the effects of prenatal stress on established neurocognitive and neuroendocrine mediators of risk for psychopathology, such as hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning. Biological pathways that may underlie the effects of positive early environments on the infant brain, including the epigenome, oxytocin, and inflammation, are also discussed. Future research in humans should examine resilience-promoting processes in relation to infant brain development using large sample sizes and longitudinal designs. The findings from this review could be incorporated into clinical models of risk and resilience during the perinatal period and used to design more effective early programs that reduce risk for psychopathology.

The conserved microRNA-229 family controls low-insulin signaling and dietary restriction induced longevity through interactions with SKN-1/NRF2.

Several microRNAs have emerged as regulators of pathways that control aging. For example, miR-228 is required for normal lifespan and dietary restriction (DR) mediated longevity through interaction with PHA-4 and SKN-1 transcription factors in Caenorhabditis elegans. miR-229,64,65, and 66, a cluster of microRNAs located adjacent to each other on chromosome III, are in the same family as miR-228, albeit with slight differences in the miR-228 seed sequence. We demonstrate that, in contrast to the anti-longevity role of miR-228, the miR-229-66 cluster is required for normal C. elegans lifespan and for the longevity observed in mir-228 mutants. miR-229-66 is also critical for lifespan extension observed under DR and reduced insulin signaling (IIS) and by constitutive nuclear SKN-1. Both DR and low-IIS upregulate the expression of the miRNA cluster, which is dependent on transcription factors PHA-4, SKN-1, and DAF-16. In turn, the expression of SKN-1 and DAF-16 requires mir-229,64,65,66. miR-229-66 targets the odd-skipped-related transcription factor, odd-2 to regulate lifespan. Knockdown of odd-2 increases lifespan, suppresses the short lifespan of mir-229,64,65,66(nDf63) III mutants, and alters levels of SKN-1 in the ASI neurons. Together with SKN-1, the miRNA cluster also indirectly regulates several genes in the xenobiotic detoxification pathway which increases wild-type lifespan and significantly rescues the short lifespan of mir-229,64,65,66(nDf63) III mutants. Thus, by interacting with SKN-1, miR-229-66 transduces the effects of DR and low-IIS in lifespan extension in C. elegans. Given that this pathway is conserved, it is possible that a similar mechanism regulates aging in more complex organisms.

Different trajectories of depression, anxiety and anhedonia symptoms in the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in a UK longitudinal sample.

BACKGROUND: While studies from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have described initial negative effects on mental health and exacerbating mental health inequalities, longer-term studies are only now emerging. METHOD: In total, 34 465 individuals in the UK completed online questionnaires and were re-contacted over the first 12 months of the pandemic. We used growth mixture modelling to identify trajectories of depression, anxiety and anhedonia symptoms using the 12-month data. We identified sociodemographic predictors of trajectory class membership using multinomial regression models. RESULTS: Most participants had consistently low symptoms of depression or anxiety over the year of assessments (60%, 69% respectively), and a minority had consistently high symptoms (10%, 15%). We also identified participants who appeared to show improvements in symptoms as the pandemic progressed, and others who showed the opposite pattern, marked symptom worsening, until the second national lockdown. Unexpectedly, most participants showed stable low positive affect, indicating anhedonia, throughout the 12-month period. From regression analyses, younger age, reporting a previous mental health diagnosis, non-binary, or self-defined gender, and an unemployed or a student status were significantly associated with membership of the stable high symptom groups for depression and anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: While most participants showed little change in their depression and anxiety symptoms across the first year of the pandemic, we highlight the divergent responses of subgroups of participants, who fared both better and worse around national lockdowns. We confirm that previously identified predictors of negative outcomes in the first months of the pandemic also predict negative outcomes over a 12-month period.

Beneficial effects of sleep extension on daily emotion in short-sleeping young adults: An experience sampling study.

OBJECTIVES: Short sleep duration has been linked to disrupted emotional experiences and poor emotion regulation. Extending sleep opportunity might therefore offer a means to improve emotion functioning. This study used experience sampling to examine the effect of sleep extension on daily emotion experiences and emotion regulation. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were young adults (n = 72), aged 18-24 years who reported consistently sleeping less than 7 hours in a 24-hour period in the past 2 weeks. DESIGN AND SETTING: For 14 consecutive days, participants completed experience sampling questions related to sleep, emotion, and emotion regulation via a smartphone application. Procedures were identical for all participants for the first 7 days ("baseline" assessments). INTERVENTION: From days 8-14, participants were randomly assigned to either a "sleep extension" condition, in which they were instructed to increase their sleep opportunity by 90 minutes or a "sleep as usual" condition. MEASUREMENTS: Duration and quality of the previous night's sleep were reported each morning and daytime experiences of positive and negative emotion and emotion regulation were measured at pseudorandom timepoints 6 times a day. RESULTS: Multilevel modeling demonstrated that participants in the sleep extension condition reported significantly longer sleep times and improved sleep quality, as well as higher positive and lower negative daily emotion, compared to those in the sleep as usual condition. CONCLUSION: A brief experimental paradigm to extend sleep length has the potential to improve sleep quality and to a minor extent mood, among young adults with short sleep.

Sleep quality is associated with emotion experience and adaptive regulation of positive emotion: An experience sampling study.

Poor sleep patterns have been strongly linked to disrupted emotional experiences. Emotion regulation, defined as the capacity to manage one's own emotional responses, comprises strategies to increase, maintain, or decrease the intensity, duration, and trajectory of positive and negative emotions. Poor sleep has been identified as a risk factor for emotional dysregulation, but most of the focus has been on negative emotion regulation. We therefore asked whether natural variations in sleep are associated with the experience and regulation of both positive and negative emotion. Young adults, aged between 18-24 years (N = 101), completed 7 days of ecological momentary assessments using a smartphone application. Duration and quality of the previous night's sleep was reported each morning. Levels of positive and negative emotions, and strategies used to regulate emotions, were measured at pseudorandom timepoints four times a day. Multilevel modelling indicated that higher self-reported sleep quality was significantly associated with increased intensity and duration of positive emotion, and decreased intensity of negative emotion. There were no statistically significant associations between sleep duration and emotion intensity or duration. Sleep quality, and not sleep duration, was also associated with the reported use of positive emotion regulation strategies. For negative emotion regulation strategy use, we found no associations with sleep quality or duration. Naturally occurring fluctuations in daily sleep quality may be important for the experience and regulation of positive emotion in young adults. These findings emphasise the need to examine both positive and negative emotion, and emotion regulation to understand the links between sleep and mood.

Crying in the first 12 months of life: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-country parent-reported data and modeling of the "cry curve".

Crying is an ubiquitous communicative signal in infancy. This meta-analysis synthesizes data on parent-reported infant cry durations from 17 countries and 57 studies until infant age 12 months (N = 7580, 54% female from k = 44; majority White samples, where reported, k = 18), from studies before the end Sept. 2020. Most studies were conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada (k = 32), and at the traditional cry "peak" (age 5-6 weeks), where the pooled estimate for cry and fuss duration was 126 mins (SD = 61), with high heterogeneity. Formal modeling of the meta-analytic data suggests that the duration of crying remains substantial in the first year of life, after an initial decline.

Digital Intervention for Problematic Smartphone Use.

Smartphones have become the primary devices for accessing the online world. The potential for smartphone use to become problematic has come into increasing focus. Students and young adults have been shown to use their smartphones at high rates and may be at risk for problematic use. There is limited research evaluating interventions for problematic smartphone use. The present research aimed to develop and evaluate a digital intervention for problematic smartphone use in a student population. A mixed-method case series design was used. The participants were 10 students with mild-moderate dependency on the online world (measured via a self-report questionnaire). An intervention comprising goal setting, personalised feedback, mindfulness, and behavioural suggestions was delivered via a smartphone application. Time spent on smartphones was measured objectively through the same application. Changes in problematic technology use, wellbeing, mindfulness, and sleep were also evaluated. The findings indicate that the intervention resulted in a reduction in self-reported problematic smartphone use, but not screen time. The findings also indicate that over the course of participation, there was a positive influence on wellbeing, online dependency, mindfulness, and sleep. However, the mechanisms of change could not be determined. The study provides preliminary evidence that a light-touch, smartphone-delivered package is an acceptable and effective intervention for students wishing to better manage their problematic smartphone use.

Peer review: the case for neutral language.

Peer review is an integral part of scientific life, determining success in publishing, grant applications, and professional appointments. We argue for the importance of neutral language in peer review and provide examples of nonneutral linguistic and stylistic devices that emphasize a reviewer's personal response to the manuscript rather than their objective assessment.

Sleep disturbance in patients attending specialized chronic pain clinics in Denmark: a longitudinal study examining the relationship between sleep and pain outcomes.

OBJECTIVES: Sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in patients with chronic pain. However, the majority of studies to date examining sleep disturbances in patients with chronic pain have been population-based cross-sectional studies. The aims of this study were to 1) examine the frequency of sleep disturbances in patients referred to two interdisciplinary chronic pain clinics in Denmark, 2) explore associations between sleep disturbances and pain intensity, disability and quality of life at baseline and follow-up, and 3) explore whether changes in sleep quality mediated the relationships between pain outcomes at baseline and pain outcomes at follow-up. METHODS: We carried out a longitudinal observational study, examining patients enrolled in two chronic pain clinics assessed at baseline (n=2,531) and post-treatment follow-up (n=657). Patients reported on their sleep disturbances using the sleep quality subscale of the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire (KSQ), their pain intensity using 0-10 numerical rating scales, their pain-related disability using the Pain Disability Index (PDI), and quality of life using the EuroQol-VAS scale. The average time between baseline and follow-up was 207 days (SD=154). RESULTS: At baseline, the majority of patients reported frequent sleep disturbances. We found a significant association at baseline between self-reported sleep disturbances and pain intensity, pain-related disability, and quality of life, where greater sleep disturbance was associated with poorer outcomes. At follow-up, patients reported significant improvements across all pain and sleep outcomes. In two mediation models, we showed that changes in sleep disturbances from baseline to follow-up were significantly associated with (i) pain intensity at follow-up, and (ii) pain disability at follow-up. However, baseline pain intensity and disability scores were not associated with changes in sleep disturbances and, we did not find evidence for significant mediation of either pain outcome by changes in sleep disturbances. CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported sleep disturbances were associated with pain outcomes at baseline and follow-up, with greater sleep disturbances associated with poorer pain outcomes. Changes in sleep quality did not mediate the relationships between baseline and follow-up scores for pain intensity and disability. These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence confirming an association between sleep and chronic pain experience, particularly suggestive of a sleep to pain link. Our data following patients after interdisciplinary treatment suggests that improved sleep is a marker for a better outcome after treatment.

Processing of infant emotion in mothers with mood disorders and implications for infant development.

BACKGROUND: Atypical neurocognitive responses to emotional stimuli are core features of unipolar depression (UD) and bipolar disorder (BD). For mothers with these mood disorders, this may influence interactions with their infants and consequently infant development. The study aimed to investigate psychophysiological and cognitive responses to infant emotional stimuli, and their relation to mother-infant interaction and infant development, in mothers with BD or UD in full or partial remission. METHODS: Four months after birth, mothers' cognitive responses to emotional infant stimuli were assessed with computerized tasks, while their facial expressions, galvanic skin responses (GSR), gazes, and fixations were recorded. Infant development and mother-infant interactions were also assessed. RESULTS: We included 76 mothers: 27 with BD, 13 with UD, and 36 without known psychiatric disorders, and their infants. Mothers with BD and UD were in full or partial remission and showed blunted GSR and spent less time looking at infant stimuli (unadjusted p values < 0.03). Mothers with BD showed subtle positive neurocognitive biases (unadjusted p values<0.04) and mothers with UD showed negative biases (unadjusted p values < 0.02). Across all mothers, some measures of atypical infant emotion processing correlated with some measures of delays in infant development and suboptimal mother-infant interaction (unadjusted p values<0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Mothers with mood disorders in full or partial remission showed atypical cognitive and psychophysiological response to emotional infant stimuli, which could be associated with mother-infant interactions and infant development. The study is explorative, hypothesis generating, and should be replicated in a larger sample. Investigation of the long-term implications of reduced maternal sensitivity is warranted.

How does cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia work? A systematic review and meta-analysis of mediators of change.

Insomnia is prevalent and debilitating, comprising sustained difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep. Cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a multicomponent intervention recommended as the first-line treatment, but the mediators of change remain unclear. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to synthesise and evaluate the evidence for potential mediators of CBT-I. Searches were performed for studies published until February 2021, reporting on mediation analyses with CBT-I. Seventeen unique samples of adults with insomnia (20 studies, N = 3125) were included. Two-stage structural equation modelling was applied to the available data, where 7 studies examined the cognitive mediator, 'dysfunctional beliefs about sleep', 5 studies examined a hyperarousal mediator, and 3 studies examined the behavioural mediator, 'time in bed'. There was evidence in support of changes in dysfunctional beliefs as a cognitive mediator of insomnia symptom improvement following CBT-I. There was more limited evidence in support of changes in hyperarousal-related mediators, and no significant effect of time in bed as a mediator. Numerous studies recorded diary-based measures of potential behavioural mediators, but analyses of these variables were not typically conducted. The most serious limitation of the evidence base is that the temporal precedence of mediator changes cannot be established. Future studies should consider: i) using mid-treatment measurements of mediator changes; ii) reporting on mediator psychometric properties; and iii) explicitly stating analyses as pre-specified or exploratory.

Gray and white matter morphology in substance use disorders: a neuroimaging systematic review and meta-analysis.

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are characterized by a compulsion to seek and consume one or more substances of abuse, with a perceived loss of control and a negative emotional state. Prolonged substance use seems to be associated with morphological changes of multiple neural circuits, in particular the frontal-striatal and limbic pathways. Such neuroadaptations are evident across several substance disorders, but may vary depending on the type of substance, consumption severity and/or other unknown factors. We therefore identified studies investigating the effects of SUDs using volumetric whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) in gray (GM) and white matter (WM). We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of VBM studies using the anatomic likelihood estimation (ALE) method implemented in GingerALE (PROSPERO pre-registration CRD42017071222 ). Sixty studies met inclusion criteria and were included in the final quantitative meta-analysis, with a total of 614 foci, 94 experiments and 4938 participants. We found convergence and divergence in brain regions and volume effects (higher vs. lower volume) in GM and WM depending on the severity of the consumption pattern and type of substance used. Convergent pathology was evident across substances in GM of the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, putamen, and thalamus, and in WM of the thalamic radiation and internal capsule bundle. Divergent pathology between occasional use (cortical pathology) and addiction (cortical-subcortical pathology) provides evidence of a possible top-down neuroadaptation. Our findings indicate particular brain morphometry alterations in SUDs, which may inform our understanding of disease progression and ultimately therapeutic approaches.

Investigating the effects of perinatal status and gender on adults' responses to infant and adult facial emotion.

The perception of emotion in infant faces is a key parental skill, thought to be impacted by caregiving experience. It is widely assumed that women, and in particular mothers in the postnatal period, are more attuned to infant facial expressions than men. However, empirical evidence for this is lacking, and it is not yet clear whether potential differences in emotion processing between adults during pregnancy and postnatally are specific to infant expressions or extend to faces of all ages. In this cross-sectional study using a subsample from a Finnish birth cohort (N = 610), we examine adult and infant facial expression perception in pre- and postnatal men and women. Women rated the happy infant faces more positively on the valence (pleasure) dimension than men, but men rated the faces higher on the arousal (excited) dimension. There were no significant differences between adults responding during pregnancy or postnatally, but first-time mothers rated the faces as higher in arousal overall than multiparous mothers. The ability to identify specific emotions (e.g., sadness) in adult faces correlated with judgments of emotion in similarly valenced infant faces. We conclude that adults differ in their sensitivity to positive or negative emotions, independent of whether they are expressed in infant or adult faces. We did not find that perinatal status (pre- or postnatal) was associated with differences in sensitivity to emotion in infant or adult faces. Men and women were differentially sensitive to the valence and arousal in infant faces, independent of the timing of their responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).