Mccormicklarsen9487

Autism spectrum disorder (autism) is a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by early childhood-onset impairments in communication and social interaction alongside restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests. This review summarizes recent developments in human genetics research in autism, complemented by epigenetic and transcriptomic findings. The clinical heterogeneity of autism is mirrored by a complex genetic architecture involving several types of common and rare variants, ranging from point mutations to large copy number variants, and either inherited or spontaneous (de novo). More than 100 risk genes have been implicated by rare, often de novo, potentially damaging mutations in highly constrained genes. These account for substantial individual risk but a small proportion of the population risk. In contrast, most of the genetic risk is attributable to common inherited variants acting en masse, each individually with small effects. Studies have identified a handful of robustly associated common variants. Different risk genes converge on the same mechanisms, such as gene regulation and synaptic connectivity. These mechanisms are also implicated by genes that are epigenetically and transcriptionally dysregulated in autism. Major challenges to understanding the biological mechanisms include substantial phenotypic heterogeneity, large locus heterogeneity, variable penetrance, and widespread pleiotropy. Considerable increases in sample sizes are needed to better understand the hundreds or thousands of common and rare genetic variants involved. Future research should integrate common and rare variant research, multi-omics data including genomics, epigenomics, and transcriptomics, and refined phenotype assessment with multidimensional and longitudinal measures.

Eye-tracking-based attentional research implicates sustained attention to threat in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, most of this research employed small stimuli set-sizes, small samples that did not include both trauma-exposed healthy participants and non-trauma-exposed participants, and generally failed to report the reliability of used tasks and attention indices. Here, using an established eye-tracking paradigm, we explore attention processes to different negatively-valenced cues in PTSD while addressing these limitations.

PTSD patients (n = 37), trauma-exposed healthy controls (TEHC; n = 34), and healthy controls (HC; n = 30) freely viewed three blocks of 30 different matrices of faces, each presented for 6 s. Each block consisted of matrices depicting eight negatively-valenced faces (anger, fear, or sadness) and eight neutral faces. Gaze patterns on negative and neural areas of interest were compared. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were evaluated for the entire sample and within groups.

The two trauma-exposed groups dwelled longer on negatively-valenced faces over neutral faces, while HC participants showed the opposite pattern. This attentional bias was more prominent in the PTSD than the TEHC group. Similar results emerged for first-fixation dwell time, but with no differences between the two trauma-exposed groups. No group differences emerged for first-fixation latency or location. Internal consistency and 1-week test-retest reliability were adequate, across and within groups.

Sustained attention on negatively-valenced stimuli emerges as a potential target for therapeutic intervention in PTSD designed to divert attention away from negatively-valenced stimuli and toward neutral ones.

Sustained attention on negatively-valenced stimuli emerges as a potential target for therapeutic intervention in PTSD designed to divert attention away from negatively-valenced stimuli and toward neutral ones.

Individuals with depression often experience widespread and persistent cognitive deficits, which might be due to brain atrophy and cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). We therefore studied the associations between depression, markers of brain atrophy and CSVD, and cognitive functioning.

We used cross-sectional data from the population-based Maastricht study (n = 4734; mean age 59.1 ± 8.6 years, 50.2% women), which focuses on type 2 diabetes. A current episode of major depressive disorder (MDD, n = 151) was assessed by the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Volumes of cerebral spinal fluid, white matter, gray matter and white matter hyperintensities, presence of lacunar infarcts and cerebral microbleeds, and total CSVD burden were assessed by 3 T magnetic resonance imaging. Multiple linear and logistic regression analyses tested the associations between MDD, brain markers and cognitive functioning in memory, information processing speed, and executive functioning & attention, and presence rmore, MDD was associated with CSVD in participants without type 2 diabetes, but this association did not explain an impaired cognitive profile.

Expressive writing about a traumatic event is promising in treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in adult trauma survivors. To date, the comparative efficacy and acceptability of this approach is uncertain. NVL-655 Therefore, we aimed to examine the comparative efficacy and acceptability of expressive writing treatments.

We included 44 RCTs with 7724 participants contributing 54 direct comparisons between expressive writing (EW), enhanced writing (i.e. including additional therapist contact or individualized writing assignments; EW+), PTSD psychotherapies (PT), neutral writing (NW), and waiting-list control (WL).

EW, EW+, PT, and NW were statistically significantly more efficacious than WL at the longest available follow-up, with SMDs (95% CI) of -0.78 (-1.10 to -0.46) for PT, -0.81 (-1.02 to -0.61) for EW+ , -0.43 (-0.65 to -0.21) for EW, and -0.37 (-0.61 to -0.14) for NW. We found small to moderate differences between the active treatments. At baseline mean PTSD severity was significantly lowtments. Adequately sized comparative randomized controlled trials preferably including all four active treatment approaches, reporting long-term data, and including researchers with balanced preferences are needed.