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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is causing disruptions in the global social system. Japanese children and adolescents have had their schools closed, government-mandated activity restrictions imposed, and interactions outside the home reduced. These restrictions can have a considerable psychological impact on children and adolescents. This review aims to describe the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity and psychological status of this population. The review was conducted by searching PubMed for information on the impact of COVID-19-related activity restrictions on children and adolescents. The search identified 11 articles, three of which contained data on anxiety and psychological problems due to physical inactivity. Next, a PubMed search was conducted about physical activity and psychological status in children and adolescents under psychological stress. The search identified 368 articles, 28 of which were included in the review. For children, data that revealed a correlation between physical activity and psychological health and sedentary time leading to mood disorders were included. For adolescents, there were nine studies that reported a correlation between physical activity and psychological health and four studies that reported no correlation between physical activity and psychological health. Of the studies that reported a correlation, seven reported that physical activity improves psychological health. The impact of psychologically stressful situations such as COVID-19 on children and adolescents has been experienced worldwide. Physical activity has been correlated with psychological health, and it may improve psychological status; physical activity should be recommended to better support the psychological health of children and adolescents under the influence of COVID-19.

Recent evidence has indicated that the disruption of oligodendrocytes may be involved in the pathogenesis of depression. Genetic factors are likely to affect trait factors, such as characteristics, rather than state factors, such as depressive symptoms. Previously, a negative self-schema had been proposed as the major characteristic of constructing trait factors underlying susceptibility to depression. Thus, the association between a negative self-schema and the functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1059004 in the OLIG2 gene, which influences OLIG2 gene expression, white matter integrity, and cerebral blood flow, was evaluated. A total of 546 healthy subjects were subjected to genotype and psychological evaluation using the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Brief Core Schema Scale (BCSS). The rs1059004 SNP was found to be associated with the self-schema subscales of the BCSS and scores on the BDI-II in an allele dose-dependent manner, and to have a predictive impact on depressive symptoms via a negative-self schema. The results suggest the involvement of a genetic factor regulating oligodendrocyte function in generating a negative-self schema as a trait factor underlying susceptibility to depression.

Previous studies have indicated associations between several OLIG2 gene single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and susceptibility to schizophrenia among Caucasians. Consistent with these findings, postmortem brain and diffusion tensor imaging studies have indicated that the schizophrenia-risk-associated allele (A) in the OLIG2 SNP rs1059004 predicts lower OLIG2 gene expression in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of schizophrenia patients and reduced white matter (WM) integrity of the corona radiata in normal brains among Caucasians. In an effort to replicate the association between this variant and WM integrity among healthy Japanese, we found that the number of A alleles was positively correlated with WM integrity in some fiber tracts, including the right posterior limb of the internal capsule, and with mean blood flow in a widespread area, including the inferior frontal operculum, orbital area, and triangular gyrus. Because the A allele affected WM integrity in opposite directions in Japanese and Caucasians, we investigated a possible association between the OLIG2 gene SNPs and the expression level of OLIG2 transcripts in postmortem DLPFCs. We evaluated rs1059004 and additional SNPs in the 5′ upstream and 3′ downstream regions of rs1059004 to cover the broader region of the OLIG2 gene. The 2 SNPs (rs1059004 and rs9653711) had opposite effects on OLIG2 gene expression in the DLPFC in Japanese and Caucasians. These findings suggest ethnicity-dependent opposite effects of OLIG2 gene SNPs on WM integrity and OLIG2 gene expression in the brain, which may partially explain the failures in replicating associations between genetic variants and psychiatric phenotypes among ethnicities.

Aim Resilience, the ability to cope with disasters and significant life adversity, is an important factor to consider when studying the mental health of populations affected by a disaster. Although high school students in a community affected by a disaster should have specific characteristics of resilience, little has been reported on the issue. This study was designed to provide initial data regarding characteristics of the resilience of high school students affected by a catastrophe. Methods A total of 760 high school students in Natori City, which was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, were profiled, and a 3-year longitudinal study was conducted with 254 students who had entered the school in 2012. Resilience was evaluated with the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. The Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Japanese version, the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised were also administered to assess the students' mental health. Results Among the students who entered the high school in 2012, 28.6% showed high resilience, and the proportion increased to 42.9% in 2013 and 46.6% in 2014. The Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Japanese version and Impact of Event Scale-Revised scores decreased significantly over the 3-year study period, but there were no significant differences in the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale scores over time. Conclusion This initial study profiling the characteristics of resilience among adolescents suggests that resilience is a highly changeable component of mental health among people who have faced adversity. Resilience can be a useful indicator of recovery from adversity and a target of interventions for improving mental health conditions.

How natural disasters affect the psychological state of adolescents has not been well studied. Thus, we examined the effect of a natural disaster on high-school-aged youth and considered the most effective forms of support following such a disaster. We examined students from two high schools that were near the epicenter of the 9.0-magnitude Great East Japan Earthquake, which struck the Tohoku coastal area on March 11, 2011, causing severe damage to the region. The questionnaires measuring depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress reaction (PTSR) was administered to the students 3 times between July 2012 and August 2014; students who scored above the cut-off values of these measures were considered high-risk students. School teachers, nurses, and counselors provided a school-based intervention for all high-risk students identified in the survey. Data were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis H-test. Survey data revealed that 860 of the 1,432 (55.9%) high school students were at high risk of psychological trauma in 2012. This rate did not change substantially in the following 2 years, reaching 1,059 of 1,488 (69.1%) in 2013, and 949 of 1,430 (62.7%) in 2014. Depression and PTSR scores were significantly lower after the intervention (for 2nd and 3rd grade students in 2013 and 2014) compared to before (for the initial 2012 survey). However, there were no significant differences between the 1st grade students for all three years. Thus, school-based interventions involving psychological testing and interviews might reduce the rates of depression and PTSR in high school students.