Intelligence and neuroticism in relation to depression and psychological distress: Evidence from two large population cohorts

BACKGROUND: Neuroticism is a risk factor for selected mental and physical illnesses and is inversely associated with intelligence. Intelligence appears to interact with neuroticism and mitigate its detrimental effects on physical health and mortality. However, the inter-relationships of neuroticism and intelligence for major depressive disorder (MDD) and psychological distress has not been well examined. METHODS: Associations and interactions between neuroticism and general intelligence (g) on MDD, self-reported depression, and psychological distress were examined in two population-based cohorts: Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS, n=19,200) and UK Biobank (n=90,529). The Eysenck Personality Scale Short Form-Revised measured neuroticism and g was extracted from multiple cognitive ability tests in each cohort. Family structure was adjusted for in GS:SFHS. RESULTS: Neuroticism was strongly associated with increased risk for depression and higher psychological distress in both samples. Although intelligence conferred no consistent independent effects on depression, it did increase the risk for depression across samples once neuroticism was adjusted for. Results suggest that higher intelligence may ameliorate the association between neuroticism and self-reported depression although no significant interaction was found for clinical MDD. Intelligence was inversely associated with psychological distress across cohorts. A small interaction was found across samples such that lower psychological distress associates with higher intelligence and lower neuroticism, although effect sizes were small. CONCLUSIONS: From two large cohort studies, our findings suggest intelligence acts a protective factor in mitigating the effects of neuroticism on psychological distress. Intelligence does not confer protection against diagnosis of depression in those high in neuroticism

Wideband active quasi-circulator with tunable isolation enhancement

An active quasi-circulator comprises three single-stage distributed amplifiers (DAs), in which two are for wideband transmission while the remaining one is for wideband signal cancellation. This quasi-circulator has wideband frequency operation and by optimising the bias current, tunable isolation enhancement between port 1 and port 3 is achieved. The experimental results show that this quasi-circulator has insertion losses of around 0 dB, return losses better than 10 dB at each port, minimum non-tunable isolation of around 15 dB from 0.8 to 2.2 GHz and tunable isolation of more than 40 dB between port 1 and port 3 from 0.8 to 2.2 GHz