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We explored whether bilingual toddlers make use of semantic and phonological overlap between their languages to learn new words. We analysed cross-sectional and longitudinal CDI data on the words understood and produced by 1.0 to 3.0-year-old bilingual toddlers with English and one additional language. Cognates were more likely to be understood and produced compared to non-cognates. Cognate effects were modulated by whether the toddler knew the translation equivalent in the other language, highlighting that young learners are sensitive to the similarities across their languages. Additionally, exploratory analyses suggest that children with smaller vocabularies rely more on translation equivalents to support the acquisition of difficult words. Children with larger vocabulary sizes exhibited no preference for translation equivalents in comprehension, and a preference for new concepts in production. The rapid acceleration of vocabulary growth in the second year of life may explain this developmental change in translation equivalent preference.
Recent stressful life events (SLEs) are an established risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Animal studies have shown evidence of gray matter (GM) reductions associated with stress, and previous work has found similar associations in humans. However longitudinal studies investigating the association between stress and changes in brain structure are limited.
Methods
The current study uses longitudinal data from the UK Biobank and comprises 4,543 participants with structural neuroimaging and recent SLE data (mean age = 61.5 years). We analyzed the association between recent SLEs and changes in brain structure, determined using the longitudinal FreeSurfer pipeline, focusing on total GM volume and five a priori brain regions: the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. We also examined if depression and childhood adversity moderated the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
Results
Individuals who had experienced recent SLEs exhibited a slower rate of hippocampal decrease over time compared to individuals who did not report any SLEs. Individuals with depression exhibited smaller GM volumes when exposed to recent SLEs. There was no effect of childhood adversity on the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest recent SLEs are not directly associated with an accelerated decline in brain volumes in a population sample of older adults, but instead may alter brain structure via affective disorder psychopathology. Further work is needed to investigate the effects of stress in younger populations who may be more vulnerable to stress-induced changes, and may yet pinpoint brain regions linked to stress-related disorders.
Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are considered diagnostic and prognostic indicators of dementia and are attributable to neurodegenerative processes. Little is known about the prognostic value of early NPS on executive functioning (EF) decline in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). We examined whether baseline NPS predicted the rate of executive function (EF) decline among older adults with ADRD.
Method:
Older adults (n = 1625) with cognitive impairment were selected from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center database. EF was estimated with a latent factor indicated by scores on Number Span Backward, Letter Fluency, and Trail Making-Part B. A curve of factors (CUFF) latent growth curve model was estimated to examine rate of change over four years. Baseline NPS severity was entered as a predictor in the model to examine its influence on the rate of change in EF over time.
Results:
The CUFF models exhibited good fit. EF significantly declined over four waves (slope = −.16, p < .001). Initial visit NPS severity predicted decline in EF (slope = .013, p < .001), such that those with greater baseline NPS severity demonstrated a more rapid decline in EF performance over time. Presence of 2 NPS significantly predicted EF decline, and those with medium total NPS severity (NPS score of 2–4) at baseline exhibited a sharper decline in EF.
Conclusions:
Findings underscore the importance of targeting NPS early across ADRD syndromes to minimize EF decline, offering novel insights into how early NPS treatment may alter cognitive trajectories. We provide an innovative, user-friendly web-based application that may be helpful for personalized treatment planning.
Social anxiety and depression exacerbate in early adolescence. Maladaptive self-referential processing confers risk for both conditions and can be assessed by the Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET). Our cross-sectional findings indicated that the SRET-elicited anterior late positive potential (LPP) was uniquely associated with social anxiety symptoms, whereas behavioral SRET scores were uniquely associated with depressive symptoms. Expanding this work, this study investigated whether the SRET-generated behavioral and LPP indices differentially predicted changes of social anxiety or depressive symptoms over time. At baseline, 115 community-dwelling youths (66 girls; Mean age/SD = 11.00/1.16 years) completed an SRET with EEG. Youths reported social anxiety and depressive symptoms at baseline and ∼six and ∼ 12 months later, based on which the intercept and slope of symptoms were estimated as a function of time. A larger anterior LPP in the negative SRET condition uniquely predicted a larger slope (faster increase) of social anxiety (but not depressive) symptoms. Greater positive behavioral SRET scores marginally predicted a smaller slope (slower increase) of depressive (but not social anxiety) symptoms. We provided novel evidence concerning the differential, prospective associations between self-referential processing and changes of social anxiety and depressive symptoms in early adolescence.
Prior studies suggest that childhood maltreatment is associated with altered hippocampal volume. However, longitudinal studies are currently scarce, making it difficult to determine how alterations in hippocampal volume evolve over time. The current study examined the relationship between childhood maltreatment and hippocampal volumetric development across childhood and adolescence in a community sample.
Methods
In this longitudinal study, a community sample of 795 participants underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in three waves spanning ages 6–21 years. Childhood maltreatment was assessed using parent-report and children´s self-report at baseline (6–12 years old). Mixed models were used to examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment and hippocampal volume across time.
Results
The quadratic term of age was significantly associated with both right and left hippocampal volume development. High exposure to childhood maltreatment was associated with reduced offset of right hippocampal volume and persistent reduced volume throughout adolescence.
Critically, the relationship between childhood maltreatment and reduced right hippocampal volume remained significant after adjusting for the presence of any depressive disorder during late childhood and adolescence and hippocampal volume polygenic risk scores. Time-by-CM and Sex-by-CM interactions were not statistically significant.
Conclusions
The present study showed that childhood maltreatment is associated with persistent reduction of hippocampal volume in children and adolescents, even after adjusting for the presence of major depressive disorder and genetic determinants of hippocampal structure.
The paper proposes a composite likelihood estimation approach that uses bivariate instead of multivariate marginal probabilities for ordinal longitudinal responses using a latent variable model. The model considers time-dependent latent variables and item-specific random effects to be accountable for the interdependencies of the multivariate ordinal items. Time-dependent latent variables are linked with an autoregressive model. Simulation results have shown composite likelihood estimators to have a small amount of bias and mean square error and as such they are feasible alternatives to full maximum likelihood. Model selection criteria developed for composite likelihood estimation are used in the applications. Furthermore, lower-order residuals are used as measures-of-fit for the selected models.
The past decade has evidenced the increased prevalence of irregularly spaced longitudinal data in social sciences. Clearly lacking, however, are modeling tools that allow researchers to fit dynamic models to irregularly spaced data, particularly data that show nonlinearity and heterogeneity in dynamical structures. We consider the issue of fitting multivariate nonlinear differential equation models with random effects and unknown initial conditions to irregularly spaced data. A stochastic approximation expectation–maximization algorithm is proposed and its performance is evaluated using a benchmark nonlinear dynamical systems model, namely, the Van der Pol oscillator equations. The empirical utility of the proposed technique is illustrated using a set of 24-h ambulatory cardiovascular data from 168 men and women. Pertinent methodological challenges and unresolved issues are discussed.
Weekly cycles in emotion were examined by combining item response modeling and spectral analysis approaches in an analysis of 179 college students' reports of daily emotions experienced over 7 weeks. We addressed the measurement of emotion using an item response model. Spectral analysis and multilevel sinusoidal models were used to identify interindividual differences in intraindividual cyclic change. Simulations and incomplete data designs were used to examine how well this combination of analysis techniques might work when applied to other practical data problems. Empirically, we found systematic individual differences in the extent to which individuals' emotions follow a weekly cycle, and in how such cycles are exhibited. Weekly cycles accounted for very little variance in day to day emotions at the individual level. Analytically, we illustrate how measurement, change, and interindividual difference models from different traditions may be combined in a practical manner to describe some of the complexities of human behavior.
Research examining (MCI) criteria in diverse and/or health-disparate populations is limited. There is a critical need to investigate the predictive validity for incident dementia of widely used MCI definitions in diverse populations.
Method:
Eligible participants were non-Hispanic White or Black Bronx community residents, free of dementia at enrollment, with at least one annual follow-up visit after baseline. Participants completed annual neurological and neuropsychological evaluations to determine cognitive status. Dementia was defined based on DSM-IV criteria using case conferences. Cox proportional hazard models assessed predictive validity for incident dementia of four specific MCI definitions (Petersen, Jak/Bondi, number of impaired tests, Global Clinical Ratings) at baseline, controlling for age, sex, education, and race/ethnicity. Time-dependent sensitivity and specificity at 2–7 years for each definition, and Youden’s index were calculated as accuracy measures.
Results:
Participants (N = 1073) ranged in age from 70 to 100 (mean = 78.4 ± 5.3) years at baseline. The sample was 62.5% female, and educational achievement averaged 13.9 ± 3.5 years. Most participants identified as White (70.0%), though Black participants were well-represented (30.0%). In general, MCI definitions differed in sensitivity and specificity for incident dementia. However, there were no significant differences in Youden’s index for any definition, across all years of follow-up.
Conclusions:
This work provides an important step toward improving the generalizability of the MCI diagnosis to underrepresented/health-disparate populations. While our findings suggest the studied MCI classifications are comparable, researchers and clinicians may choose to consider one method over another depending on the rationale for evaluation or question of interest.
This study longitudinally modeled home language exposure patterns of US Spanish–English bilingual children between the ages of 4 and 12. Participants were 280 Spanish–English bilinguals (95% Hispanic, 52% female) who were followed for up to 5 years using a cross-sequential longitudinal design. Multilevel linear regression models were used to estimate language exposure trajectories across four home language sources (adults, peers, electronic media and literacy activities) and three language modes (Spanish-only, English-only and bilingual). Results demonstrated that Spanish interactions with both adults and peers declined as children aged, while bilingual interactions showed a distinct increase over time. Conversely, media exposure and engagement in literacy activities increased over time, irrespective of the language used. Children’s age of first English exposure and current school English exposure also influenced language contact and use in the home. These findings approximate an 8-year exposure trajectory across a continuum of bilingual experiences.
Psychotic disorders are characterised by abnormalities in the synchronisation of neuronal responses. A 40 Hz gamma band deficit during auditory steady-state response (ASSR) measured by electroencephalogram (EEG) is a robust observation in psychosis and is associated with symptoms and functional deficits. However, the majority of ASSR studies focus on specific electrode sites, while whole scalp analysis using all channels, and the association with clinical symptoms, are rare.
Methods:
In this study, we use whole-scalp 40 Hz ASSR EEG measurements – power and phase-locking factor – to establish deficits in early-stage psychosis (ESP) subjects, classify ESP status using an ensemble of machine learning techniques, identify correlates with principal components obtained from clinical/demographic/functioning variables, and correlate functional outcome after a short-term follow-up.
Results:
We identified significant spatially-distributed group level differences for power and phase locking. The performance of different machine learning techniques and interpretation of the extracted feature importance indicate that phase locking has a more predictive and parsimonious pattern than power. Phase locking is also associated with principal components composed of measures of cognitive processes. Short-term functional outcome is associated with baseline 40 Hz ASSR signals from the FCz and other channels in both phase locking and power.
Conclusion:
This whole-scalp EEG study provides additional evidence to link deficits in 40 Hz ASSRs with cognition and functioning in ESP, and corroborates with prior studies of phase locking from a subset of EEG channels. Confirming 40 Hz ASSR deficits serves as a candidate phenotype to identify circuit dysfunctions and a biomarker for clinical outcomes in psychosis.
English Medium Instruction (EMI) research has highlighted the transition from secondary schools to EMI higher education as a critical stage that shapes students’ learning behaviors and perceptions. However, longitudinal studies that draw on a quantitative design to outline students’ patterns of academic development during the transition period are scarce. While investigating students’ language-related academic difficulties, previous research has predominantly treated students as a unitary cohort without exploring the disparities that may arise from individual difference variables. This chapter reports an empirical case study that adopts a longitudinal quantitative design to identify patterns of change in students’ perceptions of lecture listening difficulties during their first semester transitioning into an EMI university in China. The study also explores variations in these patterns that are associated with students’ English listening proficiency upon entry. Key methodological procedures for designing and implementing the study will be introduced, while along with sharing suggestions for handling the typical challenges of attrition and missing data in longitudinal quantitative research. The chapter concludes with methodological implications of the study for EMI research, and offers suggestions for future research based on a critical reflection of the study’s limitations.
We explored the relationship between neighbourhood and social participation among older adults using a Living Environments and Active Aging Framework. This prospective cohort study used baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) with a 3-year follow-up. Three aspects of social participation were the outcomes; walkability and greenness at baseline were exposure variables. The sample consisted of 50.0% females (n=16,735, age 72.9± 5.6 years). In males, higher greenness was associated with lower loneliness and less variety in social activities. No significant associations between greenness and social participation were found in females. High walkability was related to a higher variety of social activity and higher loneliness in males but not females, and less desire for more social activity in both sexes. Greenness and walkability impact social participation among older adults. Future research should include sex and gender-based analyses.
Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder characterised by undernutrition, significantly low body weight and large, although possibly transient, reductions in brain structure. Advanced brain ageing tracks accelerated age-related changes in brain morphology that have been linked to psychopathology and adverse clinical outcomes.
Aim
The aim of the current case–control study was to characterise cross-sectional and longitudinal patterns of advanced brain age in acute anorexia nervosa and during the recovery process.
Method
Measures of grey- and white-matter-based brain age were obtained from T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging scans of 129 acutely underweight female anorexia nervosa patients (of which 95 were assessed both at baseline and after approximately 3 months of nutritional therapy), 39 recovered patients and 167 healthy female controls, aged 12–23 years. The difference between chronological age and grey- or white-matter-based brain age was calculated to indicate brain-predicted age difference (BrainAGEGM and BrainAGEWM).
Results
Acute anorexia nervosa patients at baseline, but not recovered patients, showed a higher BrainAGEGM of 1.79 years (95% CI [1.45, 2.13]) compared to healthy controls. However, the difference was largely reduced for BrainAGEWM. After partial weight restoration, BrainAGEGM decreased substantially (beta = −1.69; CI [−1.93, −1.46]). BrainAGEs were unrelated to symptom severity or depression, but larger weight gain predicted larger normalisation of BrainAGEGM in the longitudinal patient sample (beta = −0.65; CI [−0.75, −0.54]).
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that in patients with anorexia nervosa, undernutrition is an important predictor of advanced grey-matter-based brain age, which itself might be transient in nature and largely undetectable after weight recovery.
This study examined associations between pregnancy and infant birth outcomes with child telomere length at age 17 years; and investigated if there are sex differences between pregnancy complications and telomere length. We utilised the population-based prospective Raine cohort study in Western Australia, Australia. 2900 pregnant women were recruited at 16–20 weeks’ gestation (Gen 1), and their children (Gen 2) were followed up over several years. Generalised linear models were used to examine relationships between pregnancy or birth outcomes (gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, low birth weight, macrosomia), and as a composite, with telomere length, measured via a DNA sample from blood at 17 years of age. Analyses were adjusted for a range of confounders. Among the 1202 included children, there were no differences in child telomere length for any of the individual maternal or birth weight pregnancy outcomes nor were there any significant interactions between each of the complications (individual or composite) and the sex of the child. However, females born from any of the 5 adverse outcomes had shorter telomeres (estimated mean (SE) = -0.159 (0.061), p = 0.010) than females born in the absence of these complications. Specifically, females born from a pre-eclamptic pregnancy had shorter telomeres than females not born from a pre-eclamptic pregnancy (estimated mean (SE) = -0.166 (0.072), p = 0.022). No relationships were observed in males. Further longitudinal studies are needed to understand mediating factors that are important in predicting offspring telomere length and the necessity to investigate females and males independently.
Pain resilience and regional gray matter volume (rGMV) are established correlates of adaptation to chronic pain within cross-sectional studies. Extending such work, this prospective cohort study tested the status of baseline pain resilience dimension scores and rGMV as risk factors for subsequent exacerbations in chronic pain disability and intensity.
Methods
142 adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain completed an initial assessment comprising a structural magnetic resonance imaging scan and self-report measures of cognitive/affective positivity and behavioral perseverance pain resilience dimensions, disability, pain intensity, and demographics. Disability and pain intensity were outcomes re-assessed at a 6-month follow-up. The impact of pain resilience dimension scores and identified rGMV sites on follow-up outcomes was examined after controlling for other baseline correlates of outcomes. Mediating effects of identified rGMV sites on pain resilience dimension-follow-up outcome relations were also evaluated.
Results
Aside from the significant multivariate effect of lower behavioral perseverance and cognitive/affective positivity scores, augmented left precuneus, temporal pole, superior temporal gyrus (STG), and precentral gyrus rGMV combined to predict higher follow-up disability levels, independent of covariates. Higher left fusiform gyrus rGMV levels predicted follow-up exacerbations in pain intensity, but pain resilience dimension scores did not. Finally, left precuneus and left temporal pole STG rGMV partially mediated cognitive/affective positivity-follow-up disability relations.
Conclusions
Findings underscore deficits in pain resilience and increased rGMV as potential risk factors for poorer subsequent outcomes of chronic musculoskeletal pain and provide foundations for further prospective extensions as well as targeted intervention research.
Adverse childhood events (ACEs) have been linked to widespread chronic pain (CP) in various cross-sectional studies, mainly in clinical populations. However, the independent role of different ACEs on the development of different types of CP remains elusive. Accordingly, we aimed to prospectively assess the associations between specific types of ACEs with the development of multisite CP in a large population-based cohort.
Methods
Data stemmed from the three first follow-up evaluations of CoLaus|PsyCoLaus, a prospective population-based cohort study of initially 6734 participants (age range: 35–75 years). The present sample included 1537 participants with 2161 analyzable intervals (49.7% men, mean age 57.3 years). Diagnostic criteria for ACEs were elicited using semi-structured interviews and CP was assessed by self-rating questionnaires. Multinomial logistic regressions with generalized estimating equations method analyzed the relationship between the different ACEs measured in the beginning of the interval and the risk of developing multisite CP during the follow-up. Sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the predictive value of ACEs on multisite CP with neuropathic features.
Results
Participants with a history of parental divorce or separation had an increased risk of developing multisite CP at during follow-up in comparison to those without (RR1.98; 95% CI 1.13–3.47). A strong association was highlighted between parental divorce or separation and the risk of subsequent CP with neuropathic characteristics (RR 4.21, 95% CI 1.45–12.18).
Conclusion
These results highlight the importance of psychotherapeutic management of people experiencing parental separation to prevent CP in the future.
The rates of anxiety and depression increase across adolescence, many experience recurrence after treatment, yet longitudinal studies examining promotive factors are scarce. We prospectively examined the role of the promotive factors structured style, personal and social competencies, family functioning, and social resources in homotypic and heterotypic continuity and discontinuity of anxiety and depression across three years in a clinical sample. Participants were adolescents with anxiety or depressive disorders aged 13–18 years at T1 (N = 717, 44% initial participation rate) and aged 16–21 years at T2 (N = 549, 80% follow-up participation rate). At T1, diagnoses were collected from medical records and participants responded to questionnaires. At T2, semi-structured diagnostic interviews were conducted. Higher levels of all promotive factors were associated with reduced probability of anxiety or depression three years later. The promotive factors were not associated with homotypic continuity of anxiety, whereas personal competence beliefs, social competence, and, less strongly, family functioning were associated with reduced homotypic continuity of depression and heterotypic continuity from depression to anxiety. Analyses with interaction terms did not indicate moderation by the promotive factors. Our findings suggest that bolstering promotive factors may be vital for increasing treatment success and preventing recurrence of anxiety and depression in the transition toward adulthood.
Children’s externalizing behaviors are associated with impairments across the lifespan. Developmental psychopathology theories propose transactional (bidirectional) associations between child externalizing behaviors and parenting during childhood and adolescence. Yet, these foundational relations in early childhood are not well-studied. Utilizing a large, mixed-sex sample, we examined the reciprocal nature of parenting and child externalizing behaviors across early childhood using robust repeated-measures models. Repeated measures data were drawn from a socioeconomically diverse, longitudinal pregnancy cohort of 1287 (64% Black, 31% White) mother-child dyads at four time points (ages one to six). Three variables were included in cross-lagged panel models: observed parenting quality, child externalizing symptoms, and a maternal risk composite. In covariate-adjusted models, higher parenting quality at Wave 1 predicted lower child externalizing symptoms at Wave 2. Higher externalizing symptoms at Wave 1 and Wave 2 predicted lower parenting quality at Wave 2 and Wave 3, respectively. Maternal risk and parenting quality were not significantly associated. Findings showed both parent-driven and child-driven effects across early childhood that did not vary by child sex. The transactional nature of the parent-child relationship begins in infancy, underscoring the importance of early screening and provision of supports for families to minimize and prevent the development of serious psychopathology.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and subclinical symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattentiveness coincide with an increased risk of peer victimization. What remains unclear are the developmental dynamics of these associations. In a sample drawn from two Norwegian birth cohorts (n = 872; 49.94 % girls), assessed biennially from age 6 to age 14, reciprocal relations between ADHD symptoms and victimization were examined while controlling for symptoms of anxiety and depression. ADHD symptoms were assessed through clinical interviews with parents, whereas victimization was reported by teachers using questionnaires. Random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling revealed a consistent reciprocal within-person effect of increased ADHD symptoms on victimization, and vice versa. Analyses of subdimensions of ADHD projected a consistent cross-lagged bidirectional relationship between victimization and inattentiveness symptoms only, whereas no such reciprocity was found for hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms. Results did not differ by gender. Findings suggest that the social context may constitute a vulnerability factor in the etiology of the inattentive subtype of ADHD, and at the same time, that inattentiveness symptoms pose a risk for becoming victimized.