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Background The social distancing during COVID-19 is likely to cause a feeling of alienation, which may pose a threat to the public's mental health. Our research aims to examine the relationship between negative emotions and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), considering the mediation effect of alienation and how it is moderated by anxiety and depression. Methods For this, the current study conducted a cross-sectional survey on 7145 participants during the outbreak of COVID-19, via online questionnaires comprised of a self-designed Negative emotions questionnaire, Symptom Check List 90 (SCL-90), PTSD Checklist-civilian version (PCL-C), and Adolescent Students Alienation Scale (ASAS). Results A total of 6666 pieces of data from the general population were included in the statistical analysis. The descriptive statistics showed a relatively mild level of mental disorders. Besides, results of Conditional Process Model analysis supported our hypotheses that negative emotions and alienation were both predictors for PTSD symptoms, and their direct and indirect effects were all moderated by the level of anxiety. Limitations This study was limited by the generality and causality of the conclusion. The moderating effect of depression was left for further study due to the collinearity problem of variables. Conclusions Social distancing may have an impact on individuals' mental health by the feeling of alienation, which was moderated by affective disorders. Clinical psychologists should identify individuals' particular cognition and mental disorders to provide a more accurate and adequate intervention for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To identify bipolar disorder during the initial stages of a depressive episode has always been a great clinical challenge. Patterns of functional brain activity may underlie the differences in the neural mechanisms of bipolar depression (BD) and unipolar depression (UD). This study aimed to investigate the differences in neural activity between BD and UD patients during executive task.Methods: We performed a 52-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) scan in 39 patients with BD, 35 patients with UD, and 36 healthy controls (HCs). The relative concentration changes in oxygenated hemoglobin ([oxy-Hb]) and deoxygenated hemoglobin ([deoxy-Hb]) during a 1-back working memory task were measured for each channel. Clinical characteristics including current mood were evaluated within one week prior to NIRS examination.Results: Compared to HCs, BD (CH34: Z = -2.354, P = 0.019) and UD patients (CH18: Z = -2.358, P = 0.018; CH30: Z = -2.174, P = 0.030; CH34: Z = -1.990, P = 0.047) showed reduced activation of [oxy-Hb] in the inferior prefrontal region. Compared to patients with UD, patients with BD showed less decreased [oxy-Hb] changes in the left frontopolar cortex (FPC) (CH18: Z = -2.366, P = 0.018), left pars opercularis and pars triangularis (POPE/PTRI) regions (Broca's area) (CH30: Z = -2.333, P = 0.020). No correlation existed between clinical characteristics and NIRS measurements.Limitations: The effect of medication could not be excluded, and behavioral data was not systematically collected.Conclusion: The results from this preliminary exploratory study suggest distinct prefrontal activation patterns underlie BD and UD, especially in the left frontopolar region and Broca's area. The NIRS-based prefrontal activation measurement may serve as a potential marker to aid in differentiating bipolar from unipolar depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is challenging to differentiate major depressive disorder (MDD) from bipolar disorder (BD) in depression and remission. To exclude the potential influence of depressive episodes, we compared the white matter (WM) network between MDD and BD patients in remission to find disease-specific alterations in MDD and BD, and then distinguish these two affective disorders.Methods: We recruited 33 patients with remitted MDD (rMDD), 54 patients with remitted BD (rBD), and 60 healthy controls (HCs). Diffusion tensor imaging and high-resolution 3D T1-weighted image were acquired. Global and nodal topological parameters were used to depict the alterations of the whole-brain WM network.Results: We found that rMDD displayed increased global network efficiency (Eglob) and local network efficiency (Eloc) compared with HCs, whereas we found no significance between rBD and HCs. Compared with rBD and HCs, patients in the rMDD group showed increased nodal degree and nodal efficiency, and decreased nodal shortest path length in the four cerebral regions, including the right calcarine fissure (CAL.R), right cuneus (CUN.R), left lingual gyrus (LING.L), and left middle occipital gyrus (MOG.L). We did not find any rBD specific changes of nodal topological metrics.Limitations: The main limitation is the possible effects of medication and BD subtypes on the results.Conclusions: Our findings indicate that rMDD exhibited elevated global properties compared with HCs group, and increased nodal properties in the CAL.R, CUN.R, LING.L, and MOG.L specifically compared with rBD and HCs, which may underlie the distinction of the two affective disorders in remission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), an extension of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), is a powerful tool for studying human brain.The purpose is to investigate differences between DKI and DTI by comparing parameters in same analysis methods with bipolar disorder (BD) patients.Methods: In this study, we attained in 47 BD patients and 49 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls, complimented DTI and DKI scanning and got Fractional Anisotropy (FA), Mean Diffusion (MD) and Mean Kurtosis (MK). Voxel-wise statistical analysis was performed by the tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis and atlas-based regional data analysis.Results: TBSS analysis showed more widespread regions and higher fidelity in DKI parameters than DTI parameters with the same p-value threshold, and DKI parameters showed significant alterations after Family-Wise Error correction. The DKI-FA value in the corpus callosum, bilateral cingulum (cingulate gyrus), bilateral superior corona radiata, left anterior corona radiata and left posterior corona radiata of BD patients was negatively correlated with the duration of illness. In the atlas-based regional data analysis, the effect size of DTI-FA, DTI-MD, DKI-FA and DKI-MD were quantified using Cohen's d value. DKI-FA and DKI-MD demonstrated more between-group different regions and the higher (p < 0.001) absolute Cohen's d value than DTI-FA.Limitations: This study did not consider the difference between sub-types of BD.Conclusions: Compared to DTI parameters, DKI parameters were more sensitive and stable to probe the local microstructure, and particularly powerful to exploit cerebral alterations in BD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) as a neurotrophic factor closely related to depression is able to promote the growth, proliferation, differentiation, and survival of multiple neurons. Clinical features, recurrence rates and suicide rates are significant different in major depressive disorder (MDD) according to age. GDNF level changes in the peripheral blood has been reported in patients with MDD. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether GDNF levels differentiated within various age groups and its relationship with age/clinical severity.Method: MDD subjects and healthy controls (HC) are divided into younger (age 13-24 years) group (yMDD n = 35, yHC n = 44) and older (age 25-45 years) group (oMDD n = 30, oHC n = 55) based on the age of brain maturity. Clinical symptom severity was evaluated by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17) and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA-17). The levels of plasma GDNF were compared within subgroups.Results: Plasma GDNF levels in yMDD patients were significantly decreased compared to yHC (yMDD 1.55 ± 0.46pg/ml, yHC 1.77 ± 0.47pg/ml, p < 0.05). Moreover, such difference was not found between oMDD group and oHC group. Our results also showed negative correlations between plasma GDNF levels and HAMD/HAMA scores (r = -0.33, p < 0.05; r = -0.39, p < 0.05).Limitations: This study was underpowered to observe dynamic changes between age and GDNF in MDD due to the cross-sectional design of present study. We also failed to divided subjects into more age groups because of moderate sample size.Conclusion: The present result showed the level of protective neurotrophic factor GDNF associated with age in MDD, suggesting a relevance between GDNF and MDD subjects abnormal brain development in adolescent and young adult period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]