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Purpose: This study investigated the association between childhood eating behaviors and cortical morphology, in relation to sex and age, in a community sample., Methods: Neuroimaging data of 71 children (mean age = 9.9 ± 1.4 years; 39 boys/32 girls) were obtained from the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample. Emotional overeating, food fussiness, and emotional undereating were assessed using the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Cortical thickness was obtained at 81,924 vertices covering the entire cortex. Generalized Linear Mixed Models were used for statistical analysis., Results: There was a significant effect of sex in the association between cortical thickness and emotional overeating (localized at the right postcentral and bilateral superior parietal gyri). Boys with more emotional overeating presented cortical thickening, whereas the opposite was observed in girls (p < 0.05). Different patterns of association were identified between food fussiness and cortical thickness (p < 0.05). The left rostral middle frontal gyrus displayed a positive correlation with food fussiness from 6 to 8 years, but a negative correlation from 12 to 14 years. Emotional undereating was associated with cortical thickening at the left precuneus, left middle temporal gyrus, and left insula (p < 0.05) with no effect of sex or age., Conclusions: Leveraging on a community sample, findings support distinct patterns of associations between eating behaviors and cortical thickness, depending on sex and age., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Sadness is typically characterized by raised inner eyebrows, lowered corners of the mouth, reduced walking speed, and slumped posture. Ancient subcortical circuitry provides a neuroanatomical foundation, extending from dorsal periaqueductal grey to subgenual anterior cingulate, the latter of which is now a treatment target in disorders of sadness. Electrophysiological studies further emphasize a role for reduced left relative to right frontal asymmetry in sadness, underpinning interest in the transcranial stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as an antidepressant target. Neuroimaging studies - including meta-analyses - indicate that sadness is associated with reduced cortical activation, which may contribute to reduced parasympathetic inhibitory control over medullary cardioacceleratory circuits. Reduced cardiac control may - in part - contribute to epidemiological reports of reduced life expectancy in affective disorders, effects equivalent to heavy smoking. We suggest that the field may be moving toward a theoretical consensus, in which different models relating to basic emotion theory and psychological constructionism may be considered as complementary, working at different levels of the phylogenetic hierarchy., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Oestradiol is known to play an important role in the developing human brain, although little is known about the entire network of potential regions that might be affected and how these effects may vary from childhood to early adulthood, which in turn can explain sexually differentiated behaviours. In the present study, we examined the relationships between oestradiol, cortico-amygdalar structural covariance, and cognitive or behavioural measures typically showing sex differences (verbal/spatial skills, anxious-depressed symptomatology) in 152 children and adolescents (aged 6-22 years). Cortico-amygdalar structural covariance shifted from positive to negative across the age range. Oestradiol was found to diminish the impact of age on cortico-amygdalar covariance for the pre-supplementary motor area/frontal eye field and retrosplenial cortex (across the age range), as well as for the posterior cingulate cortex (in older children). Moreover, the influence of oestradiol on age-related cortico-amygdalar networks was associated with higher word identification and spatial working memory (across the age range), as well as higher reading comprehension (in older children), although it did not impact anxious-depressed symptoms. There were no significant sex effects on any of the above relationships. These findings confirm the importance of developmental timing on oestradiol-related effects and hint at the non-sexually dimorphic role of oestradiol-related cortico-amygdalar structural networks in aspects of cognition distinct from emotional processes., (© 2019 British Society for Neuroendocrinology.)

Background: Several studies have shown that the in utero environment, which can be indexed by birth weight (BW), is associated with cortical morphology in adolescence and adulthood. Work in monozygotic (MZ) twins suggests that this association is driven by non-shared environmental factors. This correlation could be the result of in utero impacts on DNA methylation. The aim of the present study with MZ twins is to replicate the association between discordance in BW and brain morphology and test whether discordance in DNA methylation mediates this relationship., Methods: One hundred and four adolescent MZ twins (52 pairs, of which 42% were male pairs) who have been followed regularly since birth underwent T1 weighted structural MRI, and epigenome-wide assessment of DNA methylation from saliva at age 15., Results: Co-twins had very similar measures of DNA methylation and cortical morphology. Higher BW members of a twin pair had increased total cortical surface area, and decreased cortical thickness compared to their lower BW sibling. BW Discordance was positively associated with both cortical surface area and cortical volume discordance. Genes involved in neurodevelopment were tentatively identified as mediators of both the BW - cortical volume, and BW- cortical surface area relationships., Conclusions: The association between BW and cortical morphology in adolescence appears to be attributable to in utero environmental effects, and DNA methylation may play a role in mediating this relationship. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2037-2050, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., (© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Background: Studies in adult depressed patients have indicated that altered DNA methylation patterns at genes related to serotonin and HPA axis functioning (e.g., SLC6A4, FKBP5) are associated with changes in frontolimbic functional connectivity and structure. Here, we examined whether these associations can be generalized to adolescents.Methods: 25 adolescents with depression (Mean age = 15.72 ± 0.94 SD; 20 girls) and 20 healthy controls (Mean age = 16.05 ± 1.5 SD; 16 girls) underwent a functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging protocol, which included a resting-state assessment and measures of brain morphometry. DNA was obtained from saliva. Levels of SLC6A4 and FKBP5 methylation were determined using pyrosequencing.Results: SLC6A4 methylation was linked to amygdala-frontal operculum resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC), regardless of diagnosis, and was differentially associated with inferior orbitofrontal gyrus (IFOG) gray matter (GM) volume in adolescents with depression and controls. Replicating and extending previous findings in adults, FKBP5 methylation was associated with IFOG GM volume in depressed and healthy adolescents, as well as orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)-rostral prefrontal cortex (RPFC) connectivity in healthy adolescents only.Limitations: Effects of medication use or genotype cannot be ruled out. Further, the relatively small sample size and predominately female sample may limit generalizability.Conclusions: These findings suggest that previously observed associations between SLC6A4 and FKBP5 methylation and frontolimbic processes in adult depressed patients can be in part generalized to adolescent patients. Further, findings suggest that measuring peripheral methylation at these genes deserves further attention as potential markers of typical and atypical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]