Mechanisms in the intergenerational effect of maternal childhood maltreatment on offspring externalizing symptoms: The role of maternal and paternal parenting.

BACKGROUND: Although maternal childhood maltreatment has been associated with offspring externalizing symptoms, little is known about the potential mechanisms that contribute to breaking the intergenerational effect of maternal childhood maltreatment. OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed to (a) investigate the intergenerational effect between maternal childhood maltreatment and offspring externalizing symptoms in the Chinese family; (b) examine maternal supportive and harsh parenting as potential mediators of this intergenerational effect; and (c) explore the moderating roles of paternal support parenting, as well as paternal harsh parenting, in this mediation process of maternal supportive and harsh parenting. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The sample consisted of 1111 mother-father-child triads from Beijing, recruited when the children were one and three years old. METHODS: Mothers completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and both parents completed the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment and Comprehensive Early Childhood Parenting Scale. RESULTS: Our results showed that maternal childhood maltreatment was a risk factor for offspring externalizing symptoms at T2 (ß = 0.24, t = 6.51, p < .001), and this effect was mediated by maternal supportive (indirect effect = 0.03, 95%CI = [0.02, 0.05]) and harsh parenting (indirect effect = 0.03, 95%CI = [0.02, 0.07]) at T1. Furthermore, paternal harsh parenting moderated the indirect effect of maternal childhood maltreatment on child externalizing symptoms through maternal supportive parenting. CONCLUSIONS: These findings contribute to our understanding and provide valuable information for disrupting the intergenerational effect of maternal childhood maltreatment.

Temporal network of experience sampling methodology identifies sleep disturbance as a central symptom in generalized anxiety disorder.

BACKGROUND: A temporal network of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms could provide valuable understanding of the occurrence and maintenance of GAD. We aim to obtain an exploratory conceptualization of temporal GAD network and identify the central symptom. METHODS: A sample of participants (n = 115) with elevated GAD-7 scores (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Questionnaire [GAD-7] ≥ 10) participated in an online daily diary study in which they reported their GAD symptoms based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (eight symptoms in total) for 50 consecutive days. We used a multilevel VAR model to obtain the temporal network. RESULTS: In temporal network, a lot of lagged relationships exist among GAD symptoms and these lagged relationships are all positive. All symptoms have autocorrelations and there are also some interesting feedback loops in temporal network. Sleep disturbance has the highest Out-strength centrality. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates how GAD symptoms interact with each other and strengthen themselves over time, and particularly highlights the relationships between sleep disturbance and other GAD symptoms. Sleep disturbance may play an important role in the dynamic development and maintenance process of GAD. The present study may develop the knowledge of the theoretical model, diagnosis, prevention and intervention of GAD from a temporal symptoms network perspective.

Exploring neural oscillations in numerical inductive reasoning: unveiling effects of top-down and bottom-up conflict.

Previous research has delved into the brain's response to top-down and bottom-up conflicts in numerical inductive reasoning. However, the specific neural oscillatory patterns associated with these conflict types in numerical inductive reasoning processing have remained elusive. In this study, we employed a number series completion task in which participants had to determine whether a given target number adhered to concealed rules. Three conditions were established: an identity condition (e.g., 13, 13, 13), a perceptual mismatch condition (representing bottom-up conflict, e.g., 13 13 ), and a rule violation condition (representing top-down conflict, e.g., 13 13 14). Our EEG results revealed significant distinctions: rule violation induced more pronounced alpha desynchronization compared to both perceptual mismatch and identity conditions. Conversely, perceptual mismatch was associated with increased theta synchronization in contrast to rule violation and the identity condition. These findings suggest that alpha desynchronization may indicate the integration of rules during top-down conflict, while theta synchronization may function as a mechanism to inhibit bottom-up perceptual interference in numerical inductive reasoning.

The brain responses to the gating opening mechanism on perceptual and conceptual mismatches in the 1-back matching task.

OBJECTIVE: Although working memory performance is predicted by the gating mechanism, which is part of attentional control, the attentional control effect on domain-specific matching processes in the 1-back task, is lack of neural evidence. METHOD: This study adopted event-related potential (ERP) technique, and employed both perceptual and conceptual matching conditions in a digital 1-back task, requiring to judge whether the current number was perceptually or quantitatively identical to the prior one. Three types of number pairs were adopted: shape/value match (S + V +, e.g., '3 3' or ' '), shape mismatch/value match (S - V + , e.g., '3 ' or ' 5') and shape/value mismatch (S - V - , e.g., '3 5' or ' '). MAIN RESULTS: The ERP results showed that both S - V + and S - V - elicited similar larger P2 amplitudes and longer N2 and P3 latencies than S + V + in both conditions, reflecting the gate opening for perceptual input. Moreover, a task-relevance effect on P3 amplitudes was observed, with a deflection for S - V - in the conceptual matching condition and for S - V + and S - V - in the perceptual matching condition, suggesting that the gating opening mechanism enabled the retrieval of relevant information. CONCLUSION: Hence, the matching effect on P3 supported the gating opening mechanism on the matching subprocess underlying the N-back task.

The relations between emotion regulation, depression and anxiety among medical staff during the late stage of COVID-19 pandemic: a network analysis.

Existing research proposed that moving from a disorder-level analysis to a symptom-level analysis may provide a more fine-grained understanding of psychopathology. This study aimed to explore the relations between two dimensions (i.e., cognitive reappraisal, CR; expressive suppression, ES) of emotion regulation and individual symptoms of depression and anxiety among medical staff during the late stage of COVID-19 pandemic. We examined depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and emotion regulation among 420 medical staff during the late stage of COVID-19 pandemic via network analysis. Two networks (i.e. emotion regulation-depression network and emotion regulation-anxiety network) were constructed in the present study. Bridge centrality index was calculated for each variable within the two networks. Among the present sample, the prevalences of depression and anxiety are 39.5% and 26.0%. CR and ES showed distinct connections to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Results of bridge centrality showed that in both networks, CR had a negative bridge expected influence value while ES had a positive bridge expected influence value. The results revealed the specific role of CR and ES in relation to depression and anxiety at a symptom level. Implications for clinical preventions and interventions are discussed.

The relations between different components of intolerance of uncertainty and symptoms of depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: A network analysis.

Background: The relations between depression and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) have been extensively investigated during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a lack of understanding on how each component of IU may differentially affect depression symptoms and vice versa. The current study used a network approach to reveal the component-to-symptom interplay between IU and depression and identify intervention targets for depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A total of 624 college students participated in the current study. An IU-Depression network was estimated using items from the 12-item Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. We examined the network structure, node centrality, and node bridge centrality to identify component-to-symptom pathways, central nodes, and bridge nodes within the IU-Depression network. Results: Several distinct pathways (e.g., "Frustration when facing uncertainty" and "Feelings of worthlessness") emerged between IU and Depression. "Fatigue" and "Frustration when facing uncertainty" were identified as the central nodes in the estimated network. "Frustration when facing uncertainty," "Psychomotor agitation/retardation," and "Depressed or sad mood" were identified as bridging nodes between the IU and Depression communities. Conclusion: By delineating specific pathways between IU and depression and highlighting the influential role of "Frustration when facing uncertainty" in maintaining the IU-Depression co-occurrence, current findings may inform targeted prevention and interventions for depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conflict Adaptation Effect on Numerical Inductive Reasoning: An ERP Study.

Conflict adaptation is of particular importance to human information processing, as it assists in efficient responding when confronted with inconsistent information. Past investigators have focused on the role and mechanisms of conflict adaptation effects in cognitive control tasks, but there have been few studies of conflict adaptation effects in numerical inductive reasoning. In this study we adopted identical, perceptual mismatch and rule violation conditions to investigate conflict adaptation in numerical inductive reasoning. Behaviorally, we found shorter response times on trials following our experimental condition, as compared to pre-trials. In our event-related potential (ERP) electroencephalogram (EEG) results, N2 reflected the improvement in processing efficiency of rule violations in numerical inductive reasoning. Thus, these data suggest the presence of a conflict adaptation effect in high-level processing.

Relational integration predicted numerical inductive reasoning: ERP Evidence from the N400 and LNC.

As relational integration performance can be used to predict reasoning ability, the present study aimed to provide electrophysiological evidence for numerical inductive reasoning. Number series with two levels of relational complexity were utilized, including simple and hierarchical problems (such as "15-16-17" versus "15-16-18"). Two tasks were adopted: a relational integration task that required to determine whether the numerical relations were changed across numbers; a number series task that required to determine whether a hidden rule was acquired (Experiment 1) or to predict the subsequent number (Experiment 2), whose phases were divided as rule searching, rule discovery, and rule following. The event-related potential (ERP) results of both experiments indicated that, in contrast to simple problems, hierarchical problems triggered enhanced N400 and late negative component (LNC), reflecting numerical fact retrieval, and generalizing novel hypotheses about the hidden rules by integrating adjacent numerical relations, respectively; relational integration showed similar N400 and LNC activation patterns to rule discovery (Experiment 1) or rule searching (Experiment 2). Additionally, the N400 and LNC elicited by relational integration showed strong positive correlations and even were able to predict the ones triggered by rule discovery (Experiment 1) or rule searching (Experiment 2). Therefore, the results supported the role of relational integration in numerical inductive reasoning and thereby in intelligence.

ERP Characteristics of Inducing Rule Validity in Number Series Under Time Pressure.

A great deal of research has been devoted to examining the neural mechanisms of inductive reasoning. However, the influences of rule validity and time pressure on numerical inductive reasoning remain unclear. In the current study, we aimed to examine the effects of these variables on the time course of rule identification in numerical inductive reasoning. We designed a 3 (task type: valid, invalid, and anomalous) × 2 (time pressure: with time pressure and without time pressure) within-subject experiment based on electroencephalographic event-related potentials (ERP). Behaviorally, we found significant effects of rule validity and time pressure on rule identification. Neurologically, we considered the elicited N200 ERP to reflect conflict detection and found it to be modulated by rule validity but not time pressure. We considered the induced P300 ERP to be primarily related to updating working memory, affected by both rule validity and time pressure. These findings have new implications for better understanding dynamic information processing within numerical inductive reasoning.