Personality characteristics, not clinical symptoms, are associated with anhedonia in a community sample: A preliminary investigation.

Anhedonia is a salient transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom associated with increased illness severity and chronicity. Anhedonia is also present to varying degrees in non-clinical cohorts. Here, we sought to examine factors influencing expression of anhedonia. Participants (N = 335) were recruited through the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample, an initiative to deeply phenotype a large community sample across the lifespan. Utilizing a data-driven approach, we evaluated associations between anhedonia severity, indexed by Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS), and 20 physical, developmental, and clinical measures, including Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, NEO Five-Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI-3), BMI, Hemoglobin A1C, and demography. Using a bootstrapped AIC-based backward selection algorithm, seven variables were retained in the final model: NEO-FFI-3 agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience; BMI; sex; ethnicity; and race. Though median SHAPS scores were greater in participants with psychiatric diagnoses (18.5) than those without (17.0) (U = 12238.5, z = 2.473, p = 0.013), diagnosis and symptom measures were not retained as significant predictors in the final robust linear model. Participants scoring higher on agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience reported significantly lower anhedonia. These results demonstrate personality as a mild-to-moderate but significant driver of differences in experiencing pleasure in a community sample.

Elucidating the Roles of Maternal Overcontrol and Warmth in the Development of Childhood Anxiety and Depression: A Moderated Mediation Framework.

Studies have linked childhood anxiety and depression with parenting characterized by high control and low warmth. However, few studies have examined how control and warmth may work together to influence internalizing symptoms in children. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the moderating effect of warmth on the relationship between overcontrol and anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as whether negative thoughts serve as a mediator of these pathways. A total of 182 fourth and fifth grade children completed measures of maternal parenting behavior, negative thoughts, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results showed an interaction between overcontrol and warmth for depressive but not anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, low warmth increased the strength of the mediating relationship between overcontrol and depression via thoughts of personal failure. Findings may signal a need for early interventions to address parenting behaviors, such as controlling behaviors, in parents of children at risk for internalizing difficulties.

The real-time fMRI neurofeedback based stratification of Default Network Regulation Neuroimaging data repository.

This data descriptor describes a repository of openly shared data from an experiment to assess inter-individual differences in default mode network (DMN) activity. This repository includes cross-sectional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from the Multi Source Interference Task, to assess DMN deactivation, the Moral Dilemma Task, to assess DMN activation, a resting state fMRI scan, and a DMN neurofeedback paradigm, to assess DMN modulation, along with accompanying behavioral and cognitive measures. We report technical validation from n=125 participants of the final targeted sample of 180 participants. Each session includes acquisition of one whole-brain anatomical scan and whole-brain echo-planar imaging (EPI) scans, acquired during the aforementioned tasks and resting state. The data includes several self-report measures related to perseverative thinking, emotion regulation, and imaginative processes, along with a behavioral measure of rapid visual information processing. Technical validation of the data confirms that the tasks deactivate and activate the DMN as expected. Group level analysis of the neurofeedback data indicates that the participants are able to modulate their DMN with considerable inter-subject variability. Preliminary analysis of behavioral responses and specifically self-reported sleep indicate that as many as 73 participants may need to be excluded from an analysis depending on the hypothesis being tested. The present data are linked to the enhanced Nathan Kline Institute, Rockland Sample and builds on the comprehensive neuroimaging and deep phenotyping available therein. As limited information is presently available about individual differences in the capacity to directly modulate the default mode network, these data provide a unique opportunity to examine DMN modulation ability in relation to numerous phenotypic characteristics.