Heritability of cognitive and emotion processing during functional MRI in a twin sample.

Despite compelling evidence that brain structure is heritable, the evidence for the heritability of task-evoked brain function is less robust. Findings from previous studies are inconsistent possibly reflecting small samples and methodological variations. In a large national twin sample, we systematically evaluated heritability of task-evoked brain activity derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used established standardised tasks to engage brain regions involved in cognitive and emotional functions. Heritability was evaluated across a conscious and nonconscious Facial Expressions of Emotion Task (FEET), selective attention Oddball Task, N-back task of working memory maintenance, and a Go-NoGo cognitive control task in a sample of Australian adult twins (N ranged from 136 to 226 participants depending on the task and pairs). Two methods for quantifying associations of heritability and brain activity were utilised; a multivariate independent component analysis (ICA) approach and a univariate brain region-of-interest (ROI) approach. Using ICA, we observed that a significant proportion of task-evoked brain activity was heritable, with estimates ranging from 23% to 26% for activity elicited by nonconscious facial emotion stimuli, 27% to 34% for N-back working memory maintenance and sustained attention, and 32% to 33% for selective attention in the Oddball task. Using the ROI approach, we found that activity of regions specifically implicated in emotion processing and selective attention showed significant heritability for three ROIs, including estimates of 33%-34% for the left and right amygdala in the nonconscious processing of sad faces and 29% in the medial superior prefrontal cortex for the Oddball task. Although both approaches show similar levels of heritability for the Nonconscious Faces and Oddball tasks, ICA results displayed a more extensive network of heritable brain function, including additional regions beyond the ROI analysis. Furthermore, multivariate twin modelling of both ICA networks and ROI activation suggested a mix of common genetic and unique environmental factors that contribute to the associations between networks/regions. Together, the results indicate a complex relationship between genetic factors and environmental interactions that ultimately give rise to neural activation underlying cognition and emotion.

Examining the mental health services among people with mental disorders: a literature review.

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders are a significant contributor to disease burden. However, there is a large treatment gap for common mental disorders worldwide. This systematic review summarizes the factors associated with mental health service use. METHODS: PubMed, Scopus, and the Web of Science were searched for articles describing the predictors of and barriers to mental health service use among people with mental disorders from January 2012 to August 2023. The initial search yielded 3230 articles, 2366 remained after removing duplicates, and 237 studies remained after the title and abstract screening. In total, 40 studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RESULTS: Middle-aged participants, females, Caucasian ethnicity, and higher household income were more likely to access mental health services. The use of services was also associated with the severity of mental symptoms. The association between employment, marital status, and mental health services was inconclusive due to limited studies. High financial costs, lack of transportation, and scarcity of mental health services were structural factors found to be associated with lower rates of mental health service use. Attitudinal barriers, mental health stigma, and cultural beliefs also contributed to the lower rates of mental health service use. CONCLUSION: This systematic review found that several socio-demographic characteristics were strongly associated with using mental health services. Policymakers and those providing mental health services can use this information to better understand and respond to inequalities in mental health service use and improve access to mental health treatment.

Negative association between anterior insula activation and resilience during sustained attention: an fMRI twin study.

BACKGROUND: While previous studies have suggested that higher levels of cognitive performance may be related to greater wellbeing and resilience, little is known about the associations between neural circuits engaged by cognitive tasks and wellbeing and resilience, and whether genetics or environment contribute to these associations. METHODS: The current study consisted of 253 monozygotic and dizygotic adult twins, including a subsample of 187 early-life trauma-exposed twins, with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data from the TWIN-E study. Wellbeing was measured using the COMPAS-W Wellbeing Scale while resilience was defined as a higher level of positive adaptation (higher levels of wellbeing) in the presence of trauma exposure. We probed both sustained attention and working memory processes using a Continuous Performance Task in the scanner. RESULTS: We found significant negative associations between resilience and activation in the bilateral anterior insula engaged during sustained attention. Multivariate twin modelling showed that the association between resilience and the left and right insula activation was mostly driven by common genetic factors, accounting for 71% and 87% of the total phenotypic correlation between these variables, respectively. There were no significant associations between wellbeing/resilience and neural activity engaged during working memory updating. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that greater resilience to trauma is associated with less activation of the anterior insula during a condition requiring sustained attention but not working memory updating. This possibly suggests a pattern of 'neural efficiency' (i.e. more efficient and/or attenuated activity) in people who may be more resilient to trauma.

Associations between mental wellbeing and fMRI neural bases underlying responses to positive emotion in a twin sample.

BACKGROUND: Although mental wellbeing has been linked with positive health outcomes, including longevity and improved emotional and cognitive functioning, studies examining the underlying neural mechanisms of both subjective and psychological wellbeing have been sparse. We assessed whether both forms of wellbeing are associated with neural activity engaged during positive and negative emotion processing and the extent to which this association is driven by genetics or environment. METHODS: We assessed mental wellbeing in 230 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins using a previously validated questionnaire (COMPAS-W) and undertook functional magnetic resonance imaging during a facial emotion viewing task. We used linear mixed models to analyse the association between COMPAS-W scores and emotion-elicited neural activation. Univariate twin modelling was used to evaluate heritability of each brain region. Multivariate twin modelling was used to compare twin pairs to assess the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to this association. RESULTS: Higher levels of wellbeing were associated with greater neural activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, localised in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), in response to positive emotional expressions of happiness. Univariate twin modelling showed activity in the IFG to have 20% heritability. Multivariate twin modelling suggested that the association between wellbeing and positive emotion-elicited neural activity was driven by common variance from unique environment (r = 0.208) rather than shared genetics. CONCLUSIONS: Higher mental wellbeing may have a basis in greater engagement of prefrontal neural regions in response to positive emotion, and this association may be modifiable by unique life experiences.

Six-Week Online Multi-component Positive Psychology Intervention Improves Subjective Wellbeing in Young Adults.

Improving mental wellbeing has a range of benefits for society, including increased productivity, longevity, and resiliency. However, interventions designed to improve mental wellbeing are often only compared to waitlist controls, leaving uncertainty regarding the mechanisms of their effectiveness. The current study in 326 participants assessed a six-week positive psychology intervention against an active control (n = 163) in an online randomized control trial. Outcome measures included life satisfaction, wellbeing (subjective and psychological wellbeing), stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, and self-compassion. The potential moderating effect of participating during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was also explored. The intervention group showed greater improvements in life satisfaction by week six (ß = 0.18, p = .014) and were maintained through to 7 weeks post-baseline (ß = 0.23, t = 3.07, p = .002) and remained significant when accounting for COVID-19 restrictions. An improvement in composite wellbeing from baseline to 7 weeks post-baseline was detected when accounting for COVID-19 restrictions. Composite wellbeing and total depression and anxiety symptoms improved significantly more in the intervention group for participants with low baseline resiliency resources. These findings support the efficacy of using online multi-component positive psychology interventions in boosting wellbeing and reducing distress symptoms particularly in individuals with fewer resiliency resources who may need added support. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-021-00449-3.

Movement Planning Determines Sensory Suppression: An Event-related Potential Study.

Sensory suppression refers to the phenomenon that sensory input generated by our own actions, such as moving a finger to press a button to hear a tone, elicits smaller neural responses than sensory input generated by external agents. This observation is usually explained via the internal forward model in which an efference copy of the motor command is used to compute a corollary discharge, which acts to suppress sensory input. However, because moving a finger to press a button is accompanied by neural processes involved in preparing and performing the action, it is unclear whether sensory suppression is the result of movement planning, movement execution, or both. To investigate this, in two experiments, we compared ERPs to self-generated tones that were produced by voluntary, semivoluntary, or involuntary button-presses, with externally generated tones that were produced by a computer. In Experiment 1, the semivoluntary and involuntary button-presses were initiated by the participant or experimenter, respectively, by electrically stimulating the median nerve in the participant's forearm, and in Experiment 2, by applying manual force to the participant's finger. We found that tones produced by voluntary button-presses elicited a smaller N1 component of the ERP than externally generated tones. This is known as N1-suppression. However, tones produced by semivoluntary and involuntary button-presses did not yield significant N1-suppression. We also found that the magnitude of N1-suppression linearly decreased across the voluntary, semivoluntary, and involuntary conditions. These results suggest that movement planning is a necessary condition for producing sensory suppression. We conclude that the most parsimonious account of sensory suppression is the internal forward model.

Testing the Impact of Variations in Administration on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10).

Self-report measures are useful in psychological research and practice, but scores may be impacted by administration methods. This study investigated whether changing the recall period (from 30 to 7 days) and response option order (from ascending to descending) alters the score distribution of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). Participants were presented with the K10 with either different recall periods or different response option orders. There was weak evidence of lower mean K10 scores when using a 7-day recall period than when using the 30-day recall period (B = 1.96, 95% CI [0.04-3.90]) but no evidence of a change in the estimated prevalence of very high psychological distress. Presenting the response options in ascending order did not affect mean scores, but there was weak evidence of reduced prevalence of very high distress relative to the descending order (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 0.60, 95% CI [0.36-0.98]). These findings suggest that varying the administration method may result in minor differences in population estimates of very high psychological distress when using the K10.

Comparing estimates of psychological distress using 7-day and 30-day recall periods: Does it make a difference?

Self-report measures are widely used in mental health research and may use different recall periods depending on the purpose of the assessment. A range of studies aiming to monitor changes in mental health over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic opted to shorten recall periods to increase sensitivity to change over time compared to standard, longer recall periods. However, many of these studies lack pre-pandemic data using the same recall period and may rely on pre-existing data using standard recall periods as a reference point for assessing the impact of the pandemic on mental health. The aim of this study was to assess whether comparing scores on the same questionnaire with a different recall period is valid. A nationally representative sample of 327 participants in Australia completed a 7-day and 30-day version of the six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) and a single-item measure of psychological distress (TTPN item) developed for the Taking the Pulse of the Nation survey. Linear mixed models and mixed logistic regression models were used to assess whether altering the recall period systematically changed response patterns within subjects. No substantive recall period effects were found for the K6 or the TTPN, although there was a trend towards higher K6 scores when asked about the past 30 days compared to the past 7 days (b = 1.00, 95% CI: -0.18, 2.17). This may have been driven by the "feeling nervous" item which was rated higher using the 30-day compared to the 7-day recall period. Neither the K6 nor the TTPN item were significantly affected by the recall period when reduced to a binary variable of likely severe mental illness. The results indicate that altering the recall period of psychological distress measures does not substantively alter the score distribution in the general population of Australian adults.

Predicting wellbeing over one year using sociodemographic factors, personality, health behaviours, cognition, and life events.

Various sociodemographic, psychosocial, cognitive, and life event factors are associated with mental wellbeing; however, it remains unclear which measures best explain variance in wellbeing in the context of related variables. This study uses data from 1017 healthy adults from the TWIN-E study of wellbeing to evaluate the sociodemographic, psychosocial, cognitive, and life event predictors of wellbeing using cross-sectional and repeated measures multiple regression models over one year. Sociodemographic (age, sex, education), psychosocial (personality, health behaviours, and lifestyle), emotion and cognitive processing, and life event (recent positive and negative life events) variables were considered. The results showed that while neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and cognitive reappraisal were the strongest predictors of wellbeing in the cross-sectional model, while extraversion, conscientiousness, exercise, and specific life events (work related and traumatic life events) were the strongest predictors of wellbeing in the repeated measures model. These results were confirmed using tenfold cross-validation procedures. Together, the results indicate that the variables that best explain differences in wellbeing between individuals at baseline can vary from the variables that predict change in wellbeing over time. This suggests that different variables may need to be targeted to improve population-level compared to individual-level wellbeing.

Emotional face processing correlates with depression/anxiety symptoms but not wellbeing in non-clinical adults: An event-related potential study.

Whilst alterations in emotional face processing, as indicated by event-related potentials (ERPs), are associated with depression and anxiety symptoms in clinical and non-clinical samples, it has remained unclear whether they are related to mental wellbeing. The current study aimed to address this question in a non-clinical sample. The analysis included 402 adult twins from the TWIN-E study. The COMPAS-W and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-42) were used to measure mental wellbeing and depression/anxiety symptoms, respectively. Participants viewed facial expressions under Unmasked (conscious) and Masked (subliminal) conditions while ERPs were recorded. The associations of emotion processing with mental wellbeing and depression/anxiety symptoms were assessed using multivariate linear mixed models. There was a strong association between depression/anxiety symptoms and the N170 amplitude difference for the Fear - Happy contrast in the Masked condition after controlling for wellbeing scores (B = 0.34, p < .001). Specifically, higher depression/anxiety symptoms were associated with a lack of differentiation between fearful and happy faces. No associations were found between emotional face processing and mental wellbeing scores. These results indicate that even within a non-clinical sample, alterations in emotional ERPs, namely the N170, reflect differences in depression/anxiety symptoms rather than differences in wellbeing. Furthermore, this effect was limited to automatic processing, rather than conscious processing of emotional stimuli, suggesting the observed differences apply only to the subconscious pathway.

Diverse phenotypic measurements of wellbeing: Heritability, temporal stability and the variance explained by polygenic scores.

Wellbeing, a key aspect of mental health, is moderately heritable with varying estimates reported from independent studies employing a variety of instruments. Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled the construction of polygenic scores (PGS) for wellbeing, providing the opportunity for direct comparisons of the variance explained by PGS for different instruments commonly employed in the field. Nine wellbeing measurements (multi-item and single-item), two personality domains (NEO-FFI neuroticism and extraversion), plus the depression domain of the DASS-42 were drawn from a larger self-report battery applied to the TWIN-E study-an Australian longitudinal twin cohort (N = 1660). Heritability was estimated using univariate twin modeling and 12-month test-retest reliability was estimated using intra-class correlation. PGS were constructed using wellbeing GWAS summary-statistics from Baselmans et al. (Nat Genet. 2019), and the variance explained estimated using linear models. Last, a GWAS was performed using COMPAS-W, a quantitative composite wellbeing measure, to explore its utility in genomic studies. Heritability estimates ranged from 23% to 47% across instruments, and multi-item measures showed higher heritability and test-retest reliability than single-item measures. The variance explained by PGS was ~0.5% to 1.5%, with considerable variation between measures, and within each measure over 12 months. Five loci with suggestive association (p < 1 × 10-5 ) were identified from this initial COMPAS-W wellbeing GWAS. This work highlights the variability across measures currently employed in wellbeing research, with multi-item and composite measures favored over single-item measures. While wellbeing PGS are useful in a research setting, they explain little of the phenotypic variance, highlighting gaps for improved gene discovery.

Electroencephalography profiles as a biomarker of wellbeing: A twin study.

Alterations to electroencephalography (EEG) power have been reported for psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety, but not for mental wellbeing in a healthy population. This study examined the resting EEG profiles associated with mental wellbeing, and how genetics and environment contribute to these associations using twin modelling. Mental wellbeing was assessed using the COMPAS-W Wellbeing Scale which measures both subjective and psychological wellbeing. In 422 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins aged 18-61 years, we examined the association between mental wellbeing and EEG power (alpha, beta, theta, delta) using linear mixed models. This was followed by univariate and multivariate twin modelling to assess the heritability of wellbeing and EEG power, and whether the association was driven by shared genetics or environment. A significant association between wellbeing and an interaction of alpha, beta, and delta (ABD) power was found (ß = -0.33, p < 0.001) whereby a profile of high alpha and delta and low beta was associated with higher wellbeing, independent of depression and anxiety symptoms. This finding was supported by a five-fold cross-validation analysis. A significant genetic correlation (rG = -0.43) was found to account for 94% of the association between wellbeing and the EEG power interaction. Together, this study has identified a novel EEG profile with a common genetic component that may be a potential biomarker of mental wellbeing. Future studies need to clarify the causal direction of this association.