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The early caregiving environment can have lasting effects on child mental health. Animal models suggest that glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) DNA methylation plays a mediating role in linking more responsive caregiving to improved behavioral outcomes by its impact on the stress regulatory system. In this longitudinal study, we examined whether children's NR3C1 methylation levels mediate an effect of maternal sensitivity in infancy on levels of child internalizing and externalizing behavior in a community sample. Maternal sensitivity of 145 mothers was rated at infant age 5 weeks, 12 months, and 30 months by observing mother–infant interactions. Buccal DNA methylation was assessed in the same children at age 6 years and maternal-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior was assessed at age 6 and 10 years. Higher sensitivity at age 5 weeks significantly predicted lower DNA methylation levels at two NR3C1 CpG loci, although methylation levels at these loci did not mediate an effect of maternal sensitivity on levels of child internalizing and externalizing behavior. Overall, the study provides evidence that maternal sensitivity in early infancy is associated with DNA methylation levels at loci involved in stress regulation, but the significance of this finding for child mental health remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parent-adolescent interactions, particularly parental criticism and praise, have previously been identified as factors relevant to self-concept development and, when negative, to adolescent depression. Yet, whether adolescents with depression show aberrant emotional and neural reactivity to parental criticism and praise is understudied. Methods: Adolescents with depression (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 59) received feedback supposedly provided by their mother or father in the form of negative ('untrustworthy'), neutral ('chaotic'), and positive ('respectful') personality evaluations while in an MRI-scanner. After each feedback word, adolescents reported their mood. Beforehand, adolescents had rated whether these personality evaluations matched their self-views. Results: In both groups, mood decreased after criticism and increased after praise. Adolescents with depression reported blunted mood responses after praise, whereas there were no mood differences after criticism. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that adolescents with depression (v. healthy controls) exhibited increased activity in response to criticism in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus. Praise consistent with adolescents' self-views improved mood independent of depression status, while criticism matching self-views resulted in smaller mood increases in adolescents with depression (v. healthy controls). Exploratory analyses indicated that adolescents with depression recalled criticism (v. praise) more. Conclusions: Adolescents with depression might be especially attentive to parental criticism, as indexed by increased sgACC and hippocampus activity, and memorize this criticism more. Together with lower positive impact of praise, these findings suggest that cognitive biases in adolescent depression may affect how parental feedback is processed, and may be fed into their self-views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the proposed mechanisms linking childhood stressor exposure to negative mental and physical health outcomes in later life is cellular aging. In this prospective, longitudinal, and pre‐registered study, we examined the association between a cumulative pattern of childhood risk exposure from age 6 to age 10 (i.e., poor maternal mental health, parental relationship problems, family/friend death, bullying victimization, poor quality friendships) and change in two biomarkers of cellular aging (i.e., telomere length, epigenetic age) from age 6 to age 10 in a Dutch low‐risk community sample (n = 193). We further examined the moderating effect of cortisol reactivity at age 6. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses revealed no significant main effects of childhood risk exposure on change in cellular aging, nor a moderation effect of child cortisol reactivity. Secondary findings showed a positive correlation between telomere length and cortisol reactivity at age 6, warranting further investigation. More research in similar communities is needed before drawing strong conclusions based on the null results. Previous research in high‐adversity risk samples suggests an association between childhood stressor exposure and accelerated cellular aging. Our null‐findings from a longitudinal community sample indicate that such link between childhood stressor exposure and accelerated cellular aging might not be present in low‐adversity risk samples. Furthermore, our study uncovers an association between telomere length and cortisol reactivity and supports the notions of a lack of association between different biomarkers of cellular aging and a period of telomere length stability in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become crucial to study how cognitive processes are implemented in the human brain. However, the question of whether participants recruited into fMRI studies differ from participants recruited into other study contexts has received little to no attention. This is particularly pertinent when effects fail to generalize across study contexts: for example, a behavioural effect discovered in a non-imaging context not replicating in a neuroimaging environment. Here, we tested the hypothesis, motivated by preliminary findings (N  = 272), that fMRI participants differ from behaviour-only participants on one fundamental individual difference variable: trait anxiety. Analysing trait anxiety scores and possible confounding variables from healthy volunteers across multiple institutions (N  = 3317), we found robust support for lower trait anxiety in fMRI study participants, consistent with a sampling or self-selection bias. The bias was larger in studies that relied on phone screening (compared with full in-person psychiatric screening), recruited at least partly from convenience samples (compared with community samples), and in pharmacology studies. Our findings highlight the need for surveying trait anxiety at recruitment and for appropriate screening procedures or sampling strategies to mitigate this bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In adults, cortisol levels show a pronounced 24-hour rhythm with a peak in the early morning. It is unknown at what age this early-morning peak in cortisol emerges during infancy, hampering the establishment of optimal dosing regimens for hydrocortisone replacement therapy in infants with an inborn form of adrenal insufficiency. Therefore, we aimed to characterize daily variation in salivary cortisol concentration across the first year of life., Methods: We conducted a systematic review followed by an individual participant data meta-analysis of studies reporting on spontaneous (i.e., not stress induced) salivary cortisol concentrations in healthy infants aged 0-1 year. A one-stage approach using linear mixed-effects modelling was used to determine the interaction between age and time of day on cortisol concentrations., Findings: Through the systematic review, 54 eligible publications were identified, reporting on 29,177 cortisol observations. Individual participant data were obtained from 15 study cohorts, combining 17,079 cortisol measurements from 1,904 infants. The morning/evening cortisol ratio increased significantly from 1.7 (95% CI: 1.3-2.1) at birth to 3.7 (95% CI: 3.0-4.5) at 6-9 months (p < 0.0001). Cosinor analysis using all available data revealed the gradual emergence of a 24-hour rhythm during infancy., Interpretation: The early-morning peak in cortisol secretion gradually emerges from birth onwards to form a stable morning/evening ratio from age 6-9 months. This might have implications for hydrocortisone replacement therapy in infants with an inborn form of adrenal insufficiency., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society.)

Objective: Schematic self-knowledge consists of internal representations that shape perceptions of how the self is related to one's surroundings and other people. These representations may include dysfunctional implicit self-evaluations, such as associations of the self with negative attributes like shame, in trauma-spectrum disorders. The current study examines whether a negative relational self-association, that is, linking the self with rejection, characterizes dissociation., Method: One hundred six community participants with diverse early interpersonal experiences and mental health outcomes were recruited. Implicit relational self-evaluation was assessed by single-target implicit association tests. Dissociation and common psychopathological and psychosocial correlates such as anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and adverse interpersonal experiences were measured using standardized scales., Results: Individuals with more dissociative symptoms responded faster when pairing self-pronouns with rejection-related words than with acceptance-related words. The correlation between dissociation and this self-rejection association remained significant when statistically controlling for adverse interpersonal experiences and for depression, anxiety, and self-esteem., Conclusion: A self-association with being rejected characterized individuals prone to dissociation. This dysfunctional implicit self-evaluation may bias perceptions of other people's attitudes toward themselves, prompting maladaptive social behaviors that can hinder the development and maintenance of relationships in dissociative people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).