Modeling relations between event-related potential factors and broader versus narrower dimensions of externalizing psychopathology.

The organization of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) model provides unique opportunities to evaluate whether neural risk measures operate as indicators of broader latent liabilities (e.g., externalizing proneness) or narrower expressions (e.g., antisociality and alcohol abuse). Following this approach, the current study recruited a sample of 182 participants (54% female) who completed measures of externalizing psychopathology (also internalizing) and associated traits. Participants also completed three tasks (Flanker-No Threat, Flanker-Threat, and Go/No-Go tasks) with event-related potential (ERP) measurement. Three variants of two research domain criteria (RDoC)-based neurophysiological indicators-P3 and error-related negativity (ERN)-were extracted from these tasks and used to model two latent ERP factors. Scores on these two ERP factors independently predicted externalizing factor scores when accounting for their covariance with sex-suggesting distinct neural processes contributing to the broad externalizing factor. No predictive relation with the broad internalizing factor was found for either ERP factor. Analyses at the finer-grained level revealed no unique predictive relations of either ERP factor with any specific externalizing symptom variable when accounting for the broad externalizing factor, indicating that ERN and P3 index general liability for problems in this spectrum. Overall, this study provides new insights about neural processes in externalizing psychopathology at broader and narrower levels of the HiTOP hierarchy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Acute suicidal affective disturbance and borderline personality disorder symptoms: Distinct yet correlated constructs.

OBJECTIVE: Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance (ASAD) has been proposed to address the need for a suicide-specific diagnostic entity that better accounts for the psychological symptoms that may emerge during an acute suicidal crisis and that may precede imminent suicidal behaviors. However, additional research is needed to establish ASAD's delimitation from preexisting psychological disorders, especially disorders that include suicidal thoughts and behaviors in their diagnostic criteria such as borderline personality disorder (BPD). METHODS: We estimated two Gaussian graphical models (GGMs), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) models, and confirmatory factor analysis models in a sample of psychiatric outpatients (N = 460) to examine the structure of ASAD and BPD symptoms. RESULTS: Our estimated models showed while most ASAD and BPD symptoms largely shared associations with other symptoms belonging to their respective disorder construct, strong associations connected some ASAD symptoms with BPD symptoms, which, in a network model, emerged in the form of nonzero edges among those symptoms, and in EFA models, as factors that featured both ASAD and BPD symptoms as indicators. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest the network structure of the proposed criteria of ASAD features symptoms that are largely distinct to ASAD but do include symptoms that share meaningful correlations with BPD symptoms that suggest ASAD and BPD are correlated constructs.

A self-report assessment of appearance-related safety behaviours: Development and psychometric properties.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with appearance concerns may engage in maladaptive appearance-related safety behaviours aimed at checking, hiding or fixing perceived flaws in their appearance. AIMS: This investigation examined the psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of appearance-related safety behaviours across three different studies. METHOD: The first two studies utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, respectively, to understand the factor structure of the measure. The final version of the Appearance-Related Safety Behavior Scale (ARSB) consisted of 13 items and two subscales related to behavioural avoidance and appearance maintenance. RESULTS: Number of appearance-related safety behaviours was positively associated with body dysmorphic disorder symptomology and functional impairment, as well as social anxiety and eating disorder symptoms. The measure also demonstrated convergent validity with other appearance-related measures. Scores on the ARSB also predicted performance on an appearance-related behavioural task (time spent fixing appearance prior to having a picture taken). The third study found that scores on the ARSB were higher in a body dysmorphic disorder sample compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, change in scores on the ARSB was correlated with change in body dysmorphic disorder symptoms and impairment in a treatment study for body dysmorphic disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical implications and potential uses of the measure as a clinical and research tool are discussed.

Functional and structural social support in DSM-5 mood and anxiety disorders: A population-based study.

BACKGROUND: Social support has been found to be a key correlate of many psychiatric disorders including several mood and anxiety disorders. However, research on social support is largely investigated in individual disorders, despite the high co-occurrence of these diagnoses, and has typically relied on pre-DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Additionally, differences in structural and functional social support are rarely explored. Thus, the present study investigated the unique association between these two aspects of social support and past-year DSM-5 mood and anxiety disorders while adjusting for comorbidity and socio-demographic variables. METHODS: Multivariate regression and relative weights analyses were conducted to determine the association of functional and structural social support with these disorders in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions consisting of 36,309 participants. RESULTS: Results indicated depression, bipolar I, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder were significantly associated with functional support, while depression and agoraphobia were uniquely associated with structural support. Major depression and persistent depression were the two most important predictors of functional social support. LIMITATIONS: The current study utilized cross-sectional data and does not allow for causal or directional conclusions. Further, additional studies with diverse samples are needed to determine the generalizability of the current results. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights differences in functional and structural social support in various disorders and explores how this varies when accounting for comorbidity. A deeper understanding of how specific aspects of social support relate to individual psychiatric disorders could inform future prevention and treatment efforts.

Quality over quantity? The role of social contact frequency and closeness in suicidal ideation and attempt.

BACKGROUND: Social support has been identified as a protective factor against suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Research has not conclusively identified the component of social support most implicated in suicidal thoughts and behaviors: (1) frequency of social contact or (2) closeness of relationships. This study examined the relationships between these facets of social support and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in two nationally representative samples, as well as subsamples with social anxiety disorder (SAD). METHODS: Study 1 variables for lifetime and past-year suicide ideation and attempt, social contact frequency, and closeness were calculated and examined within the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R). Study 2 examined the independent contributions of social contact frequency and closeness to only lifetime suicide attempt in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III). RESULTS: In the NCS-R, lower social closeness but not contact frequency was uniquely associated with suicidal ideation and attempt in the general sample and those with SAD. In the NESARC-III, both components of social support were associated with lifetime suicide attempt in the general sample, while only social closeness was uniquely associated with suicide attempt in the SAD subsample. LIMITATIONS: This study utilized cross-sectional data and was limited in the validity and specificity of the variables assessed. DISCUSSION: Lower social closeness was more strongly associated with suicidality than social contact frequency and merits attention as a potential target for suicide-related interventions. Social closeness may be especially relevant in populations experiencing high rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and decreased social support.

Appearance concerns are uniquely associated with LPP amplitude to pictures of oneself.

A number of psychiatric disorders, including body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and social anxiety disorder, are characterized by heightened appearance concerns and increased cognitive and perceptual biases toward one's own physical appearance. In the present study, we examined individual differences in self-reported appearance anxiety and symptoms of BDD in relation to the late positive potential (LPP)-an index of stimulus significance-in response to pictures of oneself, strangers and objects among 83 female college students. The results indicated that the LPP was larger for pictures of oneself compared to pictures of strangers and objects. Further, the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Modified for Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Appearance Anxiety Inventory scales both related to an increased LPP to pictures of oneself but not to strangers or objects. The findings suggest that the LPP elicited by pictures of oneself may function as a neural marker of appearance concerns, which could be leveraged to study the development and maintenance of a range of psychiatric disorders characterized by increased appearance concerns.

A computational account of the mechanisms underlying face perception biases in depression.

Here, we take a computational approach to understand the mechanisms underlying face perception biases in depression. Thirty participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 30 healthy control participants took part in three studies involving recognition of identity and emotion in faces. We used signal detection theory to determine whether any perceptual biases exist in depression aside from decisional biases. We found lower sensitivity to happiness in general, and lower sensitivity to both happiness and sadness with ambiguous stimuli. Our use of highly-controlled face stimuli ensures that such asymmetry is truly perceptual in nature, rather than the result of studying expressions with inherently different discriminability. We found no systematic effect of depression on the perceptual interactions between face expression and identity. We also found that decisional strategies used in our task were different for people with depression and controls, but in a way that was highly specific to the stimulus set presented. We show through simulation that the observed perceptual effects, as well as other biases found in the literature, can be explained by a computational model in which channels encoding positive expressions are selectively suppressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Multifactorial prediction of depression diagnosis and symptom dimensions.

While depression is a leading cause of disability, prior investigations of depression have been limited by studying correlates in isolation. A data-driven approach was applied to identify out-of-sample predictors of current depression from adults (N = 217) sampled on a continuum of no depression to clinical levels. The current study used elastic net regularized regression and predictors from sociodemographic, self-report, polygenic scores, resting electroencephalography, pupillometry, actigraphy, and cognitive tasks to classify individuals into currently depressed (MDE), psychiatric control (PC), and no current psychopathology (NP) groups, as well as predicting symptom severity and lifetime MDE. Cross-validated models explained 20.6% of the out-of-fold deviance for the classification of MDEs versus PC, 33.2% of the deviance for MDE versus NP, but -0.6% of the deviance between PC and NP. Additionally, predictors accounted for 25.7% of the out-of-fold variance in anhedonia severity, 65.7% of the variance in depression severity, and 12.9% of the deviance in lifetime depression (yes/no). Self-referent processing, anhedonia, and psychosocial functioning emerged as important differentiators of MDE and PC groups. Findings highlight the advantages of using psychiatric control groups to isolate factors specific to depression.

Neurocognitive predictors of self-reported reward responsivity and approach motivation in depression: A data-driven approach.

BACKGROUND: Individual differences in reward-related processes, such as reward responsivity and approach motivation, appear to play a role in the nature and course of depression. Prior work suggests that cognitive biases for valenced information may contribute to these reward processes. Yet there is little work examining how biased attention, processing, and memory for positively and negatively valenced information may be associated with reward-related processes in samples with depression symptoms. METHODS: We used a data-driven, machine learning (elastic net) approach to identify the best predictors of self-reported reward-related processes using multiple tasks of attention, processing, and memory for valenced information measured across behavioral, eye tracking, psychophysiological, and computational modeling approaches (n = 202). Participants were adults (ages 18-35) who ranged in depression symptom severity from mild to severe. RESULTS: Models predicted between 5.0-12.2% and 9.7-28.0% of held-out test sample variance in approach motivation and reward responsivity, respectively. Low self-referential processing of positively valenced information was the most robust, albeit modest, predictor of low approach motivation and reward responsivity. CONCLUSIONS: Self-referential processing of positive information is the strongest predictor of reward responsivity and approach motivation in a sample ranging from mild to severe depression symptom severity. Experiments are now needed to clarify the causal relationship between self-referential processing of positively valenced information and reward processes in depression.

Association between negative cognitive bias and depression: A symptom-level approach.

Cognitive models of depression posit that negatively biased self-referent processing and attention have important roles in the disorder. However, depression is a heterogeneous collection of symptoms and all symptoms are unlikely to be associated with these negative cognitive biases. The current study involved 218 community adults whose depression ranged from no symptoms to clinical levels of depression. Random forest machine learning was used to identify the most important depression symptom predictors of each negative cognitive bias. Depression symptoms were measured with the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Model performance was evaluated using predictive R-squared (Rpred2), the expected variance explained in data not used to train the algorithm, estimated by 10 repetitions of 10-fold cross-validation. Using the self-referent encoding task (SRET), depression symptoms explained 34% to 45% of the variance in negative self-referent processing. The symptoms of sadness, self-dislike, pessimism, feelings of punishment, and indecision were most important. Notably, many depression symptoms made virtually no contribution to this prediction. In contrast, for attention bias for sad stimuli, measured with the dot-probe task using behavioral reaction time (RT) and eye gaze metrics, no reliable symptom predictors were identified. Findings indicate that a symptom-level approach may provide new insights into which symptoms, if any, are associated with negative cognitive biases in depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).