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BACKGROUND: Traumatic life events are associated with the development of psychiatric and chronic medical illnesses. This exploratory study examined the relationship between traumatic life events and the gut microbiota among adult psychiatric inpatients. METHODS: 105 adult psychiatric inpatients provided clinical data and a single fecal sample shortly after admission. A modified version of the Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire was used to quantify history of traumatic life events. 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used to analyze the gut microbial community. RESULTS: Gut microbiota diversity was not associated with overall trauma score or any of the three trauma factor scores. Upon item-level analysis, history of childhood physical abuse was uniquely associated with beta diversity. Linear Discriminant Analysis Effect Size (LefSe) analyses revealed that childhood physical abuse was associated with abundance of distinct bacterial taxa associated with inflammation. LIMITATIONS: This study did not account for dietary differences, though diet was highly restricted as all participants were psychiatric inpatients. Absolute variance accounted for by the taxa was small though practically meaningful. The study was not powered for full subgroup analysis based on race and ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: This study is among the first to demonstrate a relationship between childhood physical abuse and gut microbiota composition among adult psychiatric patients. These findings suggest that early childhood adverse events may have long-conferred systemic consequences. Future efforts may target the gut microbiota for the prevention and/or treatment of psychiatric and medical risk associated with traumatic life events.

BACKGROUND: Aberrant emotion processing is a hallmark of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with neurobiological models suggesting both heightened neural reactivity and diminished habituation to aversive stimuli. However, empirical work suggests that these response patterns may be specific to subsets of those with PTSD. This study investigates the unique contributions of PTSD symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance and numbing, and hyperarousal) to neural reactivity and habituation to negative stimuli in combat-exposed veterans. METHODS: Ninety-five combat-exposed veterans (46 with PTSD) and 53 community volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing emotional images. This study examined the relationship between symptom cluster severity and hemodynamic responses to negative compared with neutral images (NEG>NEU). RESULTS: Veterans exhibited comparable mean and habituation-related responses for NEG>NEU, relative to civilians. However, among veterans, habituation, but not mean response, was differentially related to PTSD symptom severity. Hyperarousal symptoms were related to decreased habituation for NEG>NEU in a network of regions, including superior and inferior frontal gyri, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, superior and middle temporal gyri, and anterior insula. In contrast, re-experiencing symptoms were associated with increased habituation in a similar network. Furthermore, re-experiencing severity was positively related to amygdalar functional connectivity with the left inferior frontal gyrus and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex for NEG>NEU. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that hyperarousal symptoms in combat-related PTSD are associated with decreased neural habituation to aversive stimuli. These impairments are partially mitigated in the presence of re-experiencing symptoms, such that during exposure to negative stimuli, re-experiencing symptoms are positively associated with amygdalar connectivity to prefrontal regions implicated in affective suppression. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Research and Development, Rehabilitation Research and DevelopmentUS Department of Veterans Affairs [B7760P, D2354R, D7030R]; National Institutes of HealthUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA [MH074468, MH115221, MH087692, MH106756] This work was supported in part by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Research and Development, Rehabilitation Research and Development Grant Nos. D2354R and D7030R (to BK-C), and National Institutes of Health Grant Nos. MH074468 (to BCF), MH115221 (to BK-C), and MH087692 and MH106756 (to PHC).; We thank Wright Williams and Matt Estey (who were supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Research and Development, Rehabilitation Research and Development Grant No. B7760P [to WW]), and Jessica Eiseman, Kat Gardner, David Graham, LaRaun Lindsey, Robert McNamara, and April Sanders, for their research support. We also gratefully acknowledge discussions with Vanessa Brown and Nina Lauharatanahirun.

Disproportionate reactions to unexpected stimuli in the environment are a cardinal symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here, we test whether these heightened responses are associated with disruptions in distinct components of reinforcement learning. Specifically, using functional neuroimaging, a loss-learning task, and a computational model-based approach, we assessed the mechanistic hypothesis that overreactions to stimuli in PTSD arise from anomalous gating of attention during learning (i.e., associability). Behavioral choices of combat- deployed veterans with and without PTSD were fit to a reinforcement learning model, generating trial-by-trial prediction errors (signaling unexpected outcomes) and associability values (signaling attention allocation to the unexpected outcomes). Neural substrates of associability value and behavioral parameter estimates of associability updating, but not prediction error, increased with PTSD during loss learning. Moreover, the interaction of PTSD severity with neural markers of associability value predicted behavioral choices. These results indicate that increased attention- based learning may underlie aspects of PTSD and suggest potential neuromechanistic treatment targets. This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (MH087692, MH106756 to PC), the Department of Veteran Affairs (D7030R to BKC), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671171, 31630034 to LZ). We acknowledge Read Montague and the assistance of Rizwan Ali, George Christopoulos, Dongil Chung, Alec Solway, Jessica Eiseman, Katherine Gardner, David Graham, Jacob Lee, Katherine McCurry, Robert McNamara, Cari Rosoff, Dharol Tankersley, and Wright Williams.

BACKGROUND: This study assessed the incremental validity of the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5 (PID‐5) beyond the impact of demographic, burden of illness, five‐factor model of personality, and DSM‐5 personality disorder criteria with respect to associations with admission psychiatric symptoms and functional disability. METHODS: Psychiatric inpatients (N = 927) were administered the Big Five Inventory, PID‐5, and personality disorder criteria counts. Prior treatment utilization, as well as baseline depression, anxiety, emotion regulation, and functional disability were administered within two days of the personality measures. Hierarchical regression models were used to explore the association of personality functioning with symptom functioning, emotion regulation and disability. RESULTS: Neuroticism was associated with all symptom measures, providing further support for its relevance in clinical populations. Personality trait domains (negative affect, detachment, and psychoticism) from the PID‐5 demonstrated incremental validity in predicting baseline symptom and disability functioning over and above demographic, burden of illness, and psychiatric comorbidity and five‐factor model (FFM) personality traits. CONCLUSIONS: Dimensional measures of personality functioning were consistently associated with baseline symptom functioning, supporting the relevance of personality functioning as it relates to psychiatric symptoms. The PID‐5 uniquely contributed to the prediction of baseline symptom functioning, thus providing incremental validity over gold‐standard personality trait measures.

The Core0rganic2 research project ProPIG is carried out in 75 organic pig farms in 8 European countries (AT; CH; CZ; DE; DK; FR; IT; UK) to improve animal health, welfare and nutrition using farm customised strategies. For future on-farm application (e.g. advisory/certification activities which are carried out during one day visits), an automatic recording and feedback tool was developed. This should allow on-farm data collection, import of data into a database and the possibility for benchmarking, including a printed output for the farmer to facilitate immediate discussion of results and improvement strategies. To document not only animal health and welfare, but also integrate diet composition and productivity data, it was important to choose key indicators from ali a reas, which would be available actoss ail eight countries. Based on existing on-farm welfare assessment protocols (e.g. WelfareQuality-, CorePIG) indicators were selected by the consortium, which were then transferred into a Software programme ('PigSurfer'). This Software is available as Desktop- or Android version to be used on Tablet PCs, so that on-farm data (interview with farmer; direct observations on weaners, finishers, sows; productivity and treatment records; feed) can be entered directly. During two visits a database was built and a 'Farm report' was printed for each farm including benchmarking of results for feedback and discussion with the farmer. After a year 'PigSurfer' was used to carry out the following complete process during one day visits across Europe: Surveillance of health and welfare, feedback of data in comparison with results from the previous year as weil as benchmarking with 75 other pig far ms and prin ting a report. 'PigSurfer' is a promising tool for communicating health and welfare, as it provides not only a database, which can be continuously extended, but is an important step to move from research to on-farm application across Europe.

We tested two empirically validated 4-factor models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms using the PTSD Checklist: King, Leskin, King, and Weathers' (1998) model including reexperiencing, avoidance, emotional numbing, and hyperarousal factors, and Simms, Watson, and Doebbeling's (2002) model including reexperiencing, avoidance, dysphoria, and hyperarousal. Our aim was to determine which fit better in two groups of military veterans: peacekeepers previously deployed to a war zone (deployed group) and those trained for peacekeeping operations who were not deployed (nondeployed group). We compared the groups using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Adequate model fit was demonstrated among the nondeployed group, with no significant difference between King et al.'s (1998) model (separating avoidance and numbing) and Simms et al.'s (2002) similar model involving a dysphoria factor. A better fitting factor structure consistent with Simms et al.'s (2002) model was found in the deployed group. Comprehensive measurement invariance testing demonstrated significant differences between the deployed and nondeployed groups on all structural parameters, except observed variable intercepts (thus indicating similarities only in PTSD item severity). These findings add to researchers' understanding of PTSD's factor structure, given the revision of PTSD that will appear in the forthcoming 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2010)--namely, that the factor structure may be quite different between groups with and without exposure to major traumatic events.