Brain development and imaging
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March 2021 – The Bridge
This issue includes an excellent article on mood disorders in autistic young people, written by experts Dr Emily Jackson, Dr Eleanor Smith, and Dr Aditya Sharma. The authors thoughtfully discuss the overlap between these conditions, challenges in identifying their co-occurrence, and adaptations needed for interventions.
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Is frontoamygdalar connectivity in the resting brain linked with externalising behaviours during development?
Externalising problems tend to vary over the course of development, but often peak in late adolescence. Data suggest that the frontoamygdalar brain circuitry (involved in emotion regulation) might have an important role in mediating externalising behaviour.
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EEG data might help identify children at risk for social anxiety
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive method to monitor the electrical activity of the brain. There are five main broad frequency bands in the EEG power spectrum: alpha, beta, gamma, delta and theta. Data suggest that EEG-derived delta–beta coupling — indicating related activity in the delta and beta frequency bands — might serve as a marker of emotion regulation.
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Progressive cortical thinning might identify children at risk of developing psychotic spectrum symptoms
Offspring of patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have an increased risk of developing these conditions. However, our capacity to predict the long-term outcomes of these at-risk individuals is limited. Now, researchers have investigated whether longitudinal changes in brain structure differ in individuals at high familial risk who develop psychotic spectrum symptoms, compared to those who do not and to low-risk controls.
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Emotional abuse during childhood is linked with differences in brain structure
Delia Gheorghe and colleagues at the University of Oxford have harnessed data from the UK Biobank to delineate the relationship between adverse experiences and brain structure. The researchers accessed brain imaging data together with retrospective reports of childhood adversity and adulthood partner abuse from more than 6,000 adults (mean age, 62.1 years).
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Mothers’ prenatal BMI is linked with foetal brain connectivity
New data suggest that a high maternal prenatal body mass index (BMI) is associated with differences in functional connectivity in the foetal brain that might confer a risk of mental health and cognitive problems in childhood.
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Do brain function abnormalities lead to substance use, or vice versa?
New research has, for the first time, investigated the direction of links between brain function and substance use throughout adolescence. Jungmeen Kim-Spoon and colleagues studied 167 adolescents who were assessed annually for four years from 13-14 years old.
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Is brain circuitry linked with early symptoms of autism spectrum disorder?
Researchers in San Diego, USA, have studied the relationship between brain network connectivity and emerging autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms in toddlers aged 17-45 months with (n=24) or without (n=23) ASD.
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What mechanisms underlie reduced social attention in people with ASD?
A key predictor of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis is attenuated attention to social stimuli.1 Thus far, the reasons underlying this abnormality are unknown: some have hypothesized reduced social motivation2 while others have suggested aberrant oculomotor function in affected individuals.3
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Coupled delta-beta wave activity might predict social anxiety in children
Researchers from McMaster University, Canada, have examined whether individual differences in salivary cortisol levels at baseline and parent-reported social anxiety levels are associated with resting, coupled delta–beta frontal wave activity.
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