Multimodal assessment of circadian sleep health in predicting mental health outcomes in adolescents

IntroductionAspects of circadian sleep health including circadian alignment, circadian phase, or chronotype may be related to mental health outcomes in adolescents. Using novel and robust data collection methods, this study explored the relationship between adolescents' circadian sleep health and traits related to depression, anxiety, stress, and emotional regulation.MethodsFifty-two healthy 14–18-year-olds (58% female; 94% European American) participated in this study. Across a 10-day period, participants completed wrist-worn actigraphy. Next, participants completed a dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO) protocol where 12 saliva samples were collected over a 6-h period to measure circadian phase. Circadian phase was calculated as the duration of time between DMLO to average sleep onset time across the monitoring period. Social jetlag was measured as the discrepancy between sleep times from weekday to weekend. Participants completed the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for Adolescents (MEQ). Following dichotomizing sleep outcomes into clinically relevant groups (late vs. early circadian phase, aligned vs. misaligned circadian rhythms, minimal social jetlag vs. presence of social jetlag, intermediate to morningness vs. eveningness chronotype), we conducted general linear models to determine circadian group differences in mental health outcomes (depression, anxiety, stress, expressive suppression, and cognitive reappraisal) while controlling for gender and pubertal development.ResultsCircadian phase had a large effect on depression symptoms in adolescents, with adolescents with later DLMO having significantly higher depression scores than those with earlier DLMO (p = 0.031). Chronotype had a medium but non-significant effect on anxiety and stress symptoms in adolescents, with adolescents with eveningness-tendencies having higher anxiety and stress symptoms than those with intermediate to morningness-tendencies (p's = 0.140 and 0.111, respectively).ConclusionsIn the first ever study using gold-standard methodologies to examine the relationship between mental health and circadian sleep health in healthy adolescents, we observed that adolescents with later circadian phase had increased depressive symptoms compared to earlier circadian phase. Furthermore, adolescents who endorsed behaviors that suggest eveningness tendencies may have heightened stress/anxiety. These conclusions encourage future experimental research regarding this topic and may help inform interventions aimed to decrease depression, anxiety, and stress in adolescents

Binocular rivalry in autistic and socially anxious adults

BackgroundSocial anxiousness is a pervasive symptom in both social anxiety disorder and autism spectrum conditions. Binocular rivalry, which occurs when different images are presented to each eye, has been used to explore how visual and cognitive processing differs across various clinical diagnoses. Previous studies have separately explored whether individuals with autism or anxiety experience binocular rivalry in ways that are different from neurotypical individuals.MethodsWe applied rivalry paradigms that are similar to those used in previous studies of autism and general anxiety to individuals experiencing symptoms of social anxiousness at clinical or subclinical levels. We also incorporated rivalrous stimuli featuring neutral and emotional facial valances to explore potential overlap of social processing components in social anxiety and autism.ResultsWe hypothesized that higher levels of social anxiousness would increase binocular rivalry switch rates and that higher levels of autistic traits would decrease switch rates. However, stimulus condition did not affect switch rates in either diagnostic group, and switch rate was not significantly predictive of dimensional measures of either autism or social anxiety.DiscussionThis may suggest a common mechanism for atypical visual cognition styles previously associated with social anxiety and autism. Alternatively, differences in switch rates may only emerge at higher trait levels than reported by the participants in our studies. Furthermore, these findings may be influenced by sex differences in our unique sample

Gender-Specific Interactions in a Visual Object Recognition Task in Persons with Opioid Use Disorder

Opioid use disorder (OUD)-associated overdose deaths have reached epidemic proportions worldwide over the past two decades, with death rates for men reported at twice the rate for women. Using a controlled, cross-sectional, age-matched (18–56 y) design to better understand the cognitive neuroscience of OUD, we evaluated the electroencephalographic (EEG) responses of male and female participants with OUD vs. age- and gender-matched non-OUD controls during a simple visual object recognition Go/No-Go task. Overall, women had significantly slower reaction times (RTs) than men. In addition, EEG N200 and P300 event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes for non-OUD controls were significantly larger for men, while their latencies were significantly shorter than for women. However, while N200 and P300 amplitudes were not significantly affected by OUD for either men or women in this task, latencies were also affected differentially in men vs. women with OUD. Accordingly, for both N200 and P300, male OUD participants exhibited longer latencies while female OUD participants exhibited shorter ones than in non-OUD controls. Additionally, robust oscillations were found in all participants during a feedback message associated with performance in the task. Although alpha and beta power during the feedback message were significantly greater for men than women overall, both alpha and beta oscillations exhibited significantly lower power in all participants with OUD. Taken together, these findings suggest important gender by OUD differences in cognitive processing and reflection of performance in this simple visual task

Table_1_Binocular rivalry in autistic and socially anxious adults.docx

BackgroundSocial anxiousness is a pervasive symptom in both social anxiety disorder and autism spectrum conditions. Binocular rivalry, which occurs when different images are presented to each eye, has been used to explore how visual and cognitive processing differs across various clinical diagnoses. Previous studies have separately explored whether individuals with autism or anxiety experience binocular rivalry in ways that are different from neurotypical individuals.MethodsWe applied rivalry paradigms that are similar to those used in previous studies of autism and general anxiety to individuals experiencing symptoms of social anxiousness at clinical or subclinical levels. We also incorporated rivalrous stimuli featuring neutral and emotional facial valances to explore potential overlap of social processing components in social anxiety and autism.ResultsWe hypothesized that higher levels of social anxiousness would increase binocular rivalry switch rates and that higher levels of autistic traits would decrease switch rates. However, stimulus condition did not affect switch rates in either diagnostic group, and switch rate was not significantly predictive of dimensional measures of either autism or social anxiety.DiscussionThis may suggest a common mechanism for atypical visual cognition styles previously associated with social anxiety and autism. Alternatively, differences in switch rates may only emerge at higher trait levels than reported by the participants in our studies. Furthermore, these findings may be influenced by sex differences in our unique sample.</p