Resting state functional connectivity provides mechanistic predictions of future changes in sedentary behavior

Sedentary behaviors are increasing at the cost of millions of dollars spent in health care and productivity losses due to physical inactivity-related deaths worldwide. Understanding the mechanistic predictors of sedentary behaviors will improve future intervention development and precision medicine approaches. It has been posited that humans have an innate attraction towards effort minimization and that inhibitory control is required to overcome this prepotent disposition. Consequently, we hypothesized that individual differences in the functional connectivity of brain regions implicated in inhibitory control and physical effort decision making at the beginning of an exercise intervention in older adults would predict the change in time spent sedentary over the course of that intervention. In 143 healthy, low-active older adults participating in a 6-month aerobic exercise intervention (with three conditions: walking, dance, stretching), we aimed to use baseline neuroimaging (resting state functional connectivity of two a priori defined seed regions), and baseline accelerometer measures of time spent sedentary to predict future pre-post changes in objectively measured time spent sedentary in daily life over the 6-month intervention. Our results demonstrated that functional connectivity between (1) the anterior cingulate cortex and the supplementary motor area and (2) the right anterior insula and the left temporoparietal/temporooccipital junction, predicted changes in time spent sedentary in the walking group. Functional connectivity of these brain regions did not predict changes in time spent sedentary in the dance nor stretch and tone conditions, but baseline time spent sedentary was predictive in these conditions. Our results add important knowledge toward understanding mechanistic associations underlying complex out-of-session sedentary behaviors within a walking intervention setting in older adults

BILINGUAL CHILDREN: CROSS-SECTIONAL RELATIONS OF PSYCHIATRIC SYNDROME SEVERITY AND DUAL LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

ABSTRACT The severity of child psychiatric disorders is commonly associated with child language delays. However, the characteristics of these associations in the fast-growing population of bilingual children remain unknown. To begin to address this gap, we studied a unique sample of Spanish-English bilingual children with significant parent-reported psychopathology (n=29), in terms of their language proficiencies and psychiatric severity using the CBCL. We present cross-sectional analyses of associations of general and specific language proficiency in Spanish and English with the severity of specific psychiatric syndromes. We found Spanish language proficiency scores to have negative correlations with a wide range of psychiatric symptoms, and particularly externalizing (i.e., delinquency and aggression) symptoms (r= -.38 to -.61; p≤.05). English scores were similarly associated. Dual language tests covering multiple specific language dimensions explained a large proportion (51%) of overall variance in aggression symptoms as well as important proportions (40%) of total and attentional symptoms. While children's proficiency levels in both Spanish and English showed similar associations with the symptom severity measures (explaining close to 20% of the symptom variance; r sp = -.44, p<.01), these proficiency levels explain nonconverging variance in children's symptomatology. The findings suggest clinical evaluation of language functioning is often needed in such populations, and that it should be comprehensive and include both languages. Such thorough evaluation of bilingual children suffering from psychopathology will help us to precisely identify: 1) language deficits; 2) specific relations of these deficits to the child's psychopathology; 3) differential implications of communication at home (e.g., in Spanish) and at school (e.g., in English) for clinical presentation and the child's competence in those differing contexts; and, 4) language of choice for therapy, evaluation, and educational services. The findings are discussed in the context of clinical and conceptual implications and future research needs

Bilingual Children Referred for Psychiatric Services: Associations of Language Disorders, Language Skills, and Psychopathology

Objective: To investigate (1) the prevalence of language deficits and disorders and (2) the relationship of bilingual language skills and psychopathology, in Spanish-English bilingual children referred for child and adolescent psychiatry services