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The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd-edition (ADOS-2) Toddler Module is the current gold-standard measure of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental condition more frequently diagnosed in toddler boys than girls. Some evidence suggests that behaviors assessed by the Toddler Module may capture an ASD phenotype that is more common among boys than girls. Focus on these behaviors may contribute to sex differences in ASD diagnoses. Particularly, the ADOS-2 may equivalently weight social communication behaviors on which boys and girls are expected to look similar and behaviors that which girls may, due to early socialization, perform differently than boys. As a consequence, the Toddler Module may fail to identify ASD in girls who should qualify for the diagnosis. The current study examined the possibility that some ADOS-2 items may function differently for boys and girls by testing the degree to which eight items equivalently related to a social communication latent factor across sexes in toddlers with suspected ASD. Inconsistent with hypotheses, tests of differential item functioning revealed no evidence of sex differences, suggesting that the Toddler Module assesses these eight items similarly for boys and girls. Examination of factor loadings point to Creativity/Imagination as an area of interest for future research. Lay abstract When toddlers are suspected of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the gold-standard assessment technique is with the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd edition (ADOS-2) Toddler Module, a behavioral observation system. ASD is a neurodevelopmental condition more frequently diagnosed in toddler boys than in toddler girls. There is some evidence that the ADOS-2 assesses behaviors that are more characteristic of boys with ASD than girls. Thus, it is possible that focusing on these behaviors contributes at least in part to why more boys are diagnosed than girls. Specifically, girls may show more social skills than boys during the ADOS-2 assessment due to their socialization histories, which may lead to missed diagnoses of ASD in toddler girls. The current study examined eight social behaviors assessed by the ADOS-2 in a sample of toddlers with suspected ASD to see if they contributed differently to the total score of those items. Examination of those items suggested that those social communication behaviors work the same for boys and girls with suspected ASD, which was inconsistent with hypotheses. However, examination of particular items raises the possibility of examining creative/imaginative play as an area for future research.

Background and objectives: Although research supports the premise that depressed and socially anxious individuals direct attention preferentially toward negative emotional cues, little is known abo...

Findings regarding relationships between social anxiety and subtypes of empathy have been mixed, and one study suggested that this may be due to moderation by biological sex. The present study examined whether accounting for general anxiety and biological sex clarifies these relationships. Undergraduates ( N = 701, 76% female) completed online self-report measures of cognitive and affective empathy, social and general anxiety severity, and a behavioral measure of cognitive empathy (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task; MIE). Path analysis examined relationships among social and general anxiety severity and affective and cognitive empathy. Model modification indices showed a significant influence of sex on the path from social anxiety severity to MIE accuracy. When the model was re-estimated with this path freed, more socially anxious women, but not men, showed greater MIE accuracy. Across both sexes, general anxiety severity related negatively to self-reported and behavioral (MIE) cognitive empathy. Affective empathy did not relate to either type of anxiety. The use of path analysis to simultaneously account for overlapping variance among measures of anxiety and empathy helps clarify earlier mixed findings on relationships between social anxiety and empathy subtypes.

BackgroundSchizotypal traits are considered a phenotypic-indicator of schizotypy, a latent personality organization reflecting a putative liability for psychosis. To date, no previous study has examined the comparability of factorial structures across samples originating from different countries and cultures. The main goal was to evaluate the factorial structure and reliability of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) scores by amalgamating data from studies conducted in 12 countries and across 21 sites.MethodThe overall sample consisted of 27 001 participants (37.5% males,n= 4251 drawn from the general population). The mean age was 22.12 years (s.d.= 6.28, range 16–55 years). The SPQ was used. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Multilevel CFA (ML-CFA) were used to evaluate the factor structure underlying the SPQ scores.ResultsAt the SPQ item level, the nine factor and second-order factor models showed adequate goodness-of-fit. At the SPQ subscale level, three- and four-factor models displayed better goodness-of-fit indices than other CFA models. ML-CFA showed that the intraclass correlation coefficients values were lower than 0.106. The three-factor model showed adequate goodness of fit indices in multilevel analysis. The ordinalαcoefficients were high, ranging from 0.73 to 0.94 across individual samples, and from 0.84 to 0.91 for the combined sample.ConclusionsThe results are consistent with the conceptual notion that schizotypal personality is a multifaceted construct and support the validity and utility of SPQ in cross-cultural research. We discuss theoretical and clinical implications of our results for diagnostic systems, psychosis models and cross-national mental health strategies.

BACKGROUND: Attentional bias is linked to a range of mood disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The present study examined attention bias patterns in African American children exposed to trauma, in order to better understand potential risk factors for PTSD. METHODS: 31 children (ages 8-14) completed an eye-tracking task to assess gaze bias patterns while viewing pairs of emotional and neutral faces. Trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms were assessed in a subsample of children (n = 24). RESULTS: Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) results examining attention bias indices and gender showed greater attention bias toward angry faces than happy faces (p < .01) and toward emotional faces in males than females (p < .05). Correlational analyses showed attention bias toward angry faces was associated with greater levels of child trauma exposure (p < .05). Based on linear regression analysis, child trauma exposure accounted for 17% of variance in attention bias toward angry versus neutral faces independent of gender or posttraumatic stress symptoms (p < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Trauma exposure in children is related to altered attention bias, via enhanced attention towards threatening cues. Results contribute to evidence that males and females may exhibit different attentional patterns. This study highlights the importance of additional research on attention bias patterns and prospective mental health outcomes across gender and through development.

Exposure-based treatment for threat-avoidance in anxiety disorders often results in fear renewal. However, little is known about renewal of avoidance. This multimodal laboratory-based treatment study used an ABA renewal design and an approach-avoidance (AP-AV) task to examine renewal of fear/threat and avoidance in twenty adults. In Context A, nine visual cues paired with increases in probabilistic money loss (escalating threats) elicited increases in ratings of feeling threatened and loss expectancies and skin-conductance responses (SCR). During the AP-AV task, a monetary reinforcer was available concurrently with threats. Approach produced the reinforcer or probabilistic loss, while avoidance prevented loss and forfeited reinforcement. Escalating threat produced increasing avoidance and ratings. In Context B with Pavlovian extinction, threats signaled no money loss and SCR declined. During the AP-AV task, avoidance and ratings also declined. In a return to Context A with Pavlovian threat extinction in effect during the AP-AV task, renewal was observed. Escalating threat was associated with increasing ratings and avoidance in most participants. SCR did not show renewal. These are the first translational findings to highlight renewal of avoidance in humans. Further research should identify individual difference variables and altered neural mechanisms that may confer increased risk of avoidance renewal.

Threat-related attention biases have been implicated in the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms. Research examining mechanisms through which threat-related attention biases are associated with PTSD is scarce. Negative affect, a transdiagnostic risk factor for many types of psychopathology, is one potential mechanism that has yet to be examined. Thus, the present study (n = 92) tested the indirect effect of attention bias on PTSD via negative affect using rigorous eye-tracking methodology in a sample of urban-dwelling, trauma-exposed African-American women. We found support for the hypothesis that attention bias toward threat was indirectly associated with PTSD symptoms through increased negative affect. These results suggest that negative affect may be an important etiological process through which attention bias patterns could impact PTSD symptom severity. This finding is particularly important since negative affect can be directly addressed in the context of treatment. Implications for psychological and pharmacological therapeutic interventions targeting threat-related attention biases and negative affect are discussed.

To function during social interactions, we must be able to consider and coordinate our actions with other people’s perspectives. This process unfolds from decision-making, to anticipation of that decision’s consequences, to feedback about those consequences, in what can be described as a “cascade” of three phases. The iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (iPD) task, an economic-exchange game used to illustrate how people achieve stable cooperation over repeated interactions, provides a framework for examining this “social decision cascade”. In the present study, we examined neural activity associated with the three phases of the cascade, which can be isolated during iPD game rounds. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 31 adult participants made a) decisions about whether to cooperate with a co-player for a monetary reward, b) anticipated the co-player’s decision, and then c) learned the co-player’s decision. Across all three phases, participants recruited the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), regions implicated in numerous facets of social reasoning such as perspective-taking and the judgement of intentions. Additionally, a common distributed neural network underlies both decision-making and feedback appraisal; however, differences were identified in the magnitude of recruitment between both phases. Furthermore, there was limited evidence that anticipation following the decision to defect evoked a neural signature that is distinct from the signature of anticipation following the decision to cooperate. This study is the first to delineate the neural substrates of the entire social decision cascade in the context of the iPD game.

Elucidating schizotypal traits is important if we are to understand the various manifestations of psychosis spectrum liability and to reliably identify individuals at high risk for psychosis. The present study examined the network structures of (1) 9 schizotypal personality domains and (2) 74 individual schizotypal items, and (3) explored whether networks differed across gender and culture (North America vs China). The study was conducted in a sample of 27001 participants from 12 countries and 21 sites (M age = 22.12; SD = 6.28; 37.5% males). The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) was used to assess 74 self-report items aggregated in 9 domains. We used network models to estimate conditional dependence relations among variables. In the domain-level network, schizotypal traits were strongly interconnected. Predictability (explained variance of each node) ranged from 31% (odd/magical beliefs) to 55% (constricted affect), with a mean of 43.7%. In the item-level network, variables showed relations both within and across domains, although within-domain associations were generally stronger. The average predictability of SPQ items was 27.8%. The network structures of men and women were similar (r = .74), node centrality was similar across networks (r = .90), as was connectivity (195.59 and 199.70, respectively). North American and Chinese participants networks showed lower similarity in terms of structure (r = 0.44), node centrality (r = 0.56), and connectivity (180.35 and 153.97, respectively). In sum, the present article points to the value of conceptualizing schizotypal personality as a complex system of interacting cognitive, emotional, and affective characteristics.

The present study examined and compared the effects of 2 analogues of cognitive treatments-cognitive defusion and cognitive reappraisal-on symbolically generalized avoidance established using a basic behavioral laboratory paradigm. This back-translation design contributes to the development and validation of principle-based definitions of the applied constructs of defusion and reappraisal. Eighty-eight participants first underwent basic laboratory procedures designed to establish symbolically generalized avoidance in response to an arbitrary stimulus (a nonsense word). Participants were then randomized to defusion, reappraisal, or control conditions. The response variables were (a) equivalence responding-indicative of the trained relational network and analogous to the cognitive content responsible for symbolic generalization-and (b) avoidance-the behavioral impact of symbolic generalization. A between-groups analysis revealed that defusion and reappraisal significantly increased the odds of nonavoidance responding. Discrete-time survival mediation analyses provided preliminary support for the classification of defusion as a functional context intervention and reappraisal as a relational context intervention.

Cognitive factors, such as beliefs that anxiety is harmful, may lead parents to engage excessively in over-controlling parenting practices, such as “rescuing” children from distress. The present study examined whether parental rescue behavior, or the speed at which parents intervened to rescue an increasingly distressed child during an audio paradigm, was associated with beliefs about child anxiety. We also evaluated the impact of psychoeducation on rescue behavior during the audio paradigm. A nonclinical sample of 310 parents was recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform. Findings support the hypothesis that parents’ stronger beliefs that anxiety is harmful relate to parents’ faster speed of rescue. Additionally, participants who received psychoeducation delayed their rescue responses more than did participants who received benign information. Findings add to the growing body of evidence that cognitive factors contribute to countertherapeutic parent behavior and indicate that psychoeducation can be an important component of family-based child anxiety treatment.

Reductions in judgmental biases concerning the cost and probability of negative social events are presumed to be mechanisms of treatment for SAD. Methodological limitations of extant studies, however, leave open the possibility that, instead of causing symptom relief, reductions in judgmental biases are correlates or consequences of it. The present study evaluated changes in judgmental biases as mechanisms explaining the efficacy of CBT for SAD. Participants were 86 individuals who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for a primary diagnosis of SAD, participated in one of two treatment outcome studies of CBT for SAD, and completed measures of judgmental (i.e., cost and probability) biases and social anxiety at pre-, mid-, and posttreatment. Treated participants had significantly greater reductions in judgmental biases than not-treated participants; pre-to-post changes in cost and probability biases statistically mediated treatment outcome; and probability bias at midtreatment was a significant predictor of treatment outcome, even when modeled with a plausible rival mediator, working alliance. Contrary to hypotheses, cost bias at midtreatment was not a significant predictor of treatment outcome. Results suggest that reduction in probability bias is a mechanism by which CBT for SAD exerts its effects.

Background: Schizotypal traits are expressions of underlying vulnerability to psychotic disorders which have a potential impact on mental health status, neurocognition, quality of life, and daily functioning. To date, little research has examined epidemiologic landscape of schizotypal traits at the cross-national level. Our aim was to study the expression of schizotypal traits by sex, age, and country in a combined sample gathered from 12 countries. Methods: A total of 27,001 participants completed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). The mean age of participants was 22.12 (SD = 6.28); 37.5% (n = 10,126) were males. Results: Schizotypal traits varied according to sex, age, and country. Females scored higher than males in the positive dimension, whereas males scored higher in the disorganization dimension. By age, a significant decrease in the positive schizotypal traits was observed. Epidemiological expression of schizotypal traits varied by country. Moreover, several interactions by sex, age, and country were found. Conclusions: This pattern is similar to those found in patients with psychosis and psychotic-like experiences. These findings provide new insights and the opportunity to explore the phenotypic expression of schizotypal traits at cross-national level. © 2018

The amygdala factors prominently in neurobiological models of social anxiety (SA), yet amygdala volume findings regarding SA have been inconsistent and largely focused on case-control characterization. One source of discrepant findings could be variability in volumetric techniques. Therefore, we compared amygdala volumes derived via an automated technique (Freesurfer) against a manually corrected approach, also involving Freesurfer. Additionally, we tested whether the relationship between volume and SA symptom severity would differ across volumetric techniques. We pooled participants (n = 76) from archival studies. SA severity was assessed with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale; scores ranged from non-clinical to clinical levels. Freesurfer produced significantly larger amygdalar volumes for participants with poor image quality. Even after excluding such participants, paired sample t-tests showed Freesurfer's boundaries produced significantly larger amygdalar volumes than manually corrected ones, bilaterally. Yet, intra-class correlation coefficients between the two methods were high, which suggests that Freesurfer's over-estimation of amygdala volume was systemic. Regardless of segmentation technique, volumes were not associated with SA symptom severity. Potentially, amygdala sub-regions may yield clearer patterns regarding SA symptoms. Further, our study underscores the importance of image quality for segmentation of the amygdala, and image quality may be particularly valuable when examining anatomical data for subtle inter-individual differences.

Introduction Impaired inhibition of fear in the presence of safety cues and a deficiency in the extinction of fear cues are increasingly thought to be important biological markers of Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Other studies have suggested that there may be altered neural activation during behavioral inhibition tasks in subjects with PTSD. The current study aimed to see whether neural activation during inhibition was reduced in a highly traumatized civilian population, and whether atypical activation was associated with impaired fear inhibition. Methods The participants were 41 traumatized women (20 PTSD+, 21 PTSD−) recruited from Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA. We used a Go/NoGo procedure with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a high-resolution 3T scanner. Participants were instructed to press a button whenever an “X” or “O” appeared on the screen, but not if a red square appeared behind the letter. Participants were assessed for trauma history and PTSD diagnosis, and completed a fear-potentiated startle and extinction paradigm. Results We found stronger activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in traumatized subjects without PTSD compared to those with PTSD in the NoGo greater than Go contrast condition. Activation in the vmPFC was negatively correlated with fear-potentiated startle responses during safety signal learning (p = .02) and fear extinction (p = .0002). Conclusions These results contribute to understanding of how the neural circuitry involved in inhibitory processes may be deficient in PTSD. Furthermore, the same circuits involved in behavioral inhibition appear to be involved in fear inhibition processes during differential fear conditioning and extinction.

The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B) was developed with the aim of examining variations in healthy trait schizotypy, as well as latent vulnerability to psychotic-spectrum disorders. No previous study has studied the cross-cultural validity of the SPQ-B in a large cross-national sample. The main goal of the present study was to analyze the reliability and the internal structure of SPQ-B scores in a multinational sample of 28,426 participants recruited from 14 countries. The mean age was 22.63. years (SD = 7.08; range 16-68. years), 37.7% (n = 10,711) were men. The omega coefficients were high, ranging from 0.86 to 0.92 for the total sample. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that SPQ-B items were grouped either in a theoretical structure of three first-order factors (Cognitive-Perceptual, Interpersonal, and Disorganized) or in a bifactor model (three first-order factors plus a general factor of schizotypal personality). In addition, the results supported configural but not strong measurement invariance of SPQ-B scores across samples. These findings provide new information about the factor structure of schizotypal personality, and support the validity and utility of the SPQ-B, a brief and easy tool for assessing self-reported schizotypal traits, in cross-national research. Theoretical and clinical implications for diagnostic systems, psychosis models, and cross-national mental health strategies are derived from these results. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.

Implicit intergroup bias emerges early in development, are typically pro-ingroup, and remain stable across the lifespan. Such findings have been interpreted in terms of an automatic ingroup bias similar to what is observed with minimal groups paradigms. These studies are typically conducted with groups of high cultural standing (e.g., Caucasians in North America and Europe). Research conducted among culturally lower status groups (e.g., African-Americans, Latino-Americans) reveals a notable absence of an implicit ingroup bias. Understanding the environmental factors that contribute to the absence of an implicit ingroup bias among people from culturally lower status groups is critical for advancing theories of implicit intergroup cognition. The present study aimed to elucidate the factors that shape racial group bias among African-American children and young adults by examining their relationship with age, school composition (predominantly Black schools or racially mixed schools), parental racial attitudes and socialization messages among African-American children (N = 86) and young adults (N = 130). Age, school-type and parents’ racial socialization messages were all found to be related to the strength of pro-Black (ingroup) bias. We also found that relationships between implicit and explicit bias and frequency of parents' racial socialization messages depended on the type of school participants attended. Our results highlight the importance of considering environmental factors in shaping the magnitude and direction of implicit and explicit race bias among African-Americans rather than treating them as a monolithic group.

Attentional biases have been proposed to contribute to symptom maintenance in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), although the neural correlates of these processes have not been well defined; this was the goal of the present study. We administered an attention bias task, the dot probe, to a sample of 37 (19 control, 18 PTSD+) traumatized African-American adults during fMRI. Compared to controls, PTSD+ participants demonstrated increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in response to threat cue trials. In addition, attentional avoidance of threat corresponded with increased ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation in the PTSD group, a pattern that was not observed in controls. These data provide evidence to suggest that relative increases in dlPFC, dACC and vlPFC activation represent neural markers of attentional bias for threat in individuals with PTSD, reflecting selective disruptions in attentional control and emotion processing networks in this disorder.

BackgroundPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops in a minority of traumatized individuals. Attention biases to threat and abnormalities in fear learning and extinction are processes likely to play a critical role in the creation and/or maintenance of PTSD symptomatology. However, the relationship between these processes has not been established, particularly in highly traumatized populations; understanding their interaction can help inform neural network models and treatments for PTSD.MethodAttention biases were measured using a dot probe task modified for use with our population; task stimuli included photographs of angry facial expressions, which are emotionally salient threat signals. A fear-potentiated startle paradigm was employed to measure atypical physiological response during acquisition and extinction phases of fear learning. These measures were administered to a sample of 64 minority (largely African American), highly traumatized individuals with and without PTSD.ResultsParticipants with PTSD demonstrated attention biases toward threat; this attentional style was associated with exaggerated startle response during fear learning and early and middle phases of extinction, even after accounting for the effects of trauma exposure.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that an attentional bias toward threat is associated with abnormalities in ‘fear load’ in PTSD, providing seminal evidence for an interaction between these two processes. Future research combining these behavioral and psychophysiological techniques with neuroimaging will be useful toward addressing how one process may modulate the other and understanding whether these phenomena are manifestations of dysfunction within a shared neural network. Ultimately, this may serve to inform PTSD treatments specifically designed to correct these atypical processes.

Virtual reality exposure (VRE) has been shown to be effective for treating a variety of anxiety disorders, including social phobia. Presence, or the level of connection an individual feels with the virtual environment, is widely discussed as a critical construct both for the experience of anxiety within a virtual environment and for a successful response to VRE. Two published studies show that whereas generalized presence relates to fear ratings during VRE, it does not relate to treatment response. However, presence has been conceptualized as multidimensional, with three primary factors (spatial presence, involvement, and realness). These factors can be linked to other research on the facilitation of fear during exposure, inhibitors of treatment response (e.g., distraction), and more recent theoretical discussions of the mechanisms of exposure therapy, such as Bouton’s description of expectancy violation. As such, one or more of these components of presence may be more strongly associated with the experience of fear during VRE and treatment response than the overarching construct. The current study (N = 41) evaluated relations between three theorized components of presence, fear ratings during VRE, and treatment response for VRE for social phobia. Results suggest that total presence and realness subscale scores were related to in-session peak fear ratings. However, only scores on the involvement subscale significantly predicted treatment response. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Recent evidence suggests that normal-range paranoid ideation may be particularly likely to develop in individuals disposed to both social anxiety and perceptual anomalies. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that among college students in an unselected sample, social anxiety and experience of perceptual anomalies would not only each independently predict the experience of self-reported paranoid ideation, but would also interact to predict paranoid patterns of thought. A diverse sample of 644 students completed a large battery of self-report measures, as well as the five-factor Paranoia/Suspiciousness Questionnaire (PSQ). We conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting scores on each PSQ factor from responses on measures of social anxiety, perceptual aberration, and the interaction between the two constructs. Current general negative affect was covaried in all analyses. We found that both social anxiety and perceptual aberrations, along with negative affect, predicted multiple dimensions of paranoia as measured by the PSQ; the two constructs did not, however, interact significantly to predict any dimensions. Our findings suggest that perceptual aberration and anxiety may contribute to normal-range paranoid ideation in an additive rather than an interactive manner.

BackgroundDepression is a disabling disorder that significantly impacts on the interpersonal functioning of individuals. However, little is known about the neural substrates of such difficulties. In the last few years neuroeconomics, which combines imaging with multiplayer behavioural economic paradigms, has been used to study the neural substrates of normal and abnormal interpersonal interactions.MethodThis study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural activity in unmedicated depressed participants (n = 25) and matched healthy controls (n = 25). During scanning, participants played a behavioural economic game, the Prisoner's Dilemma. In this game, the participant and a co-player independently choose either to cooperate or not cooperate with each other.ResultsDepressed participants reported higher levels of negative feelings (betrayal, guilt) during the game than did controls. Neural activation was compared between ‘imbalanced’ events [when one of the players cooperated and the other defected (‘CD’ and ‘DC’)] and ‘draw’ events [when both players either cooperated or defected (‘CC’ and ‘DD’)]. Participants preferentially activated the anterior insula and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a region implicated in cognitive control and regulation of emotions. Importantly, compared to controls depressed participants showed reduced activation in the left DLPFC, with the extent of signal reduction correlating with increased self-report feelings of guilt associated with DC outcomes.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that depression is associated with reduced activation of the DLPFC during social events that involve unreciprocated cooperation. This abnormality may underlie anomalies in cognitive control and top-down regulation of emotions during challenging social exchanges.

Emotional and behavioral problems are common among adultswhoweremaltreated as children (1).Thesemaladaptive outcomes appear, at least in part, to reflect enduring changes in brain structure and function that emerge in the wake of severe stressors, such as childhood physical abuse (2). Research that clarifies the extent to which such changes stem from the experience of abuse itself as opposed to the psychiatric conditions that maltreated children often develop, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and depressive disorders, is important. Indeed, a specific understanding of the path from maltreatment to adverse outcomes could inform maltreatmentrelated policy and practice, enabling us to implement both more effectively and efficiently. It could, for instance, help us determine where we should target scarce resources in order to best decreasemaltreatment and its negative consequences. Do we invest in across-the-board services for all maltreated youths, or do we focus some resources more heavily on individuals who show abuse-related psychopathology? It could also guide our selection of interventions or preventive approaches that aremost likely to benefit particular people. If a patient presents with a history of maltreatment but only subthreshold psychiatric symptoms, might one intervention approach be more efficient and effective than another? Research thathelpsus to answer suchquestionsdecisively could have a striking impact on public health. Why, then, are there so few studies that yield clear evidence about maltreatment and whether it leads directly to changes in brain activity patterns or engenders such changes indirectly, by provoking symptoms that in turn alter the brain? One reason is that research that supports confident inferences about whether neural changes stem from life experiences, fromsymptoms, or fromboth ishard to conduct. Recruitment alone is unusually challenging, because participants should ideally be distributed across multiple otherwise-matched groups (non-maltreated/psychiatric disorder, maltreated/psychiatric disorder, non-maltreated/disorderfree, and maltreated/disorder-free). However, although the fourth group (maltreated/disorder-free) is theoretically possible, it is rare to find people with maltreatment histories who are entirely resilient to psychopathology. Thus, including such a group is both impractical andunlikely to yield data that are relevant to more than a few individuals. In addition, researchers must carefully exclude participants with experiences (e.g., drug abuse, brain injury) and characteristics (e.g., neurological anomalies) that could muddy results or introduce irrelevant but potentially influential differences between group members’ brains. The process of selecting cognitive tasks that facilitate meaningful behavioral and neural comparisons among group members introduces further challenges. Optimal tasks tap discrete cognitive processes that are vulnerable to disruption byearly-lifemaltreatmentandalsoelicit robust, reliableneural responsepatterns.Furthermore, ideal tasksadapt interactively to each participant’s ability level, becoming harder when a person performs well and easier when a person performs poorly. This feature ensures that no participants experience the same task as particularly difficult or easy. These are just a few of the issues that complicate studies of neural function andmaltreatment; this work is not for the faint of heart. It is thus exciting to see studies that address these issues head-on come to publication. Lim and colleagues, who describe just such a study in this issueof theJournal (3), are tobecommended forwhat they have achieved. Lim et al. used functional neuroimaging to examine neural activity, indexed as the ratio of deoxygenated to oxygenated blood, throughout the brain while adolescents executed or withheld motor responses in response to rapidly presented cues on a computer screen. Importantly, the task was designed to adjust stimulus presentation rates so that each participant succeeded on only half of the trials when they were cued to withhold a response. The unsuccessful, or “failed inhibition,” trials were of particular interest, because maltreated participants were expected, given their histories of persistent, harsh punishment early in life, to show a distinctive neural hypersensitivity to their own errors. To test the hypothesis that maltreated youths’ brains would respond more sensitively to behavioral errors than would the brains of non-maltreated youths, the authors compared neuroimaging data obtained during this stop-signal task in three demographically matched, unmedicated/drugfree groups of adolescents—one with documented histories of A specific understanding of the path from maltreatment to adverse outcomes could inform maltreatmentrelated policy and practice, enabling us to implement both more effectively and efficiently.

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is commonly used to assess difficulties recognizing and managing negative affect. Scores on the scale are strongly correlated with measures of psychopathology and are inversely correlated with measures of psychological well-being. Evidence supports the use of the DERS with adolescents and adults; to date, however, few studies have investigated the extent to which the psychometric properties of the DERS are consistent across demographic groups. The overarching goal of the present study was to examine the extent to which the factor structure of the DERS and the reliability and validity of DERS scores are consistent across gender and race in a diverse sample of adults. A total of 1,050 students from a medium-sized, urban university were included in the present study. Participants included 75.6% women and 24.4% men; 42.5% of participants identified as Caucasian, 40.4% as African American, and 17.1% as Asian American. Results showed that the DERS exhibits similar psychometric properties across men and women and all 3 racial groups that were included in this study. As such, the overall scale, as well as the original 6-factor solution of the DERS, can be reliably applied to individuals from the demographic groups investigated in the current study, and results can be interpreted in accordance with those from the preliminary DERS validation sample.

The main goal of this study was to examine the cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) (Raine, 1991) in two large samples of Spanish and American young adults. The final sample was made up of 2313 college students (508 men, 22%). Their mean age was 20.5 years (S.D.=3.2). The results indicated that the Stefanis et al. (2004) four-factor model yielded the best goodness-of-fit indices compared to alternative models. Moreover, the results support configural, metric, and partial measurement invariance of the covariances of the SPQ across the two samples. The finding of measurement equivalence across cultures provides essential evidence of construct validity for the schizotypy dimensions and of the cross-cultural validity of SPQ scores. The finding of comparable dimensional structures in cross-cultural samples lends further support to the continuum model of schizotypy and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Future studies should continue to examine the validity of scores on the SPQ and other schizotypy measures and their variation or consistency across cultures.

Preliminary evidence suggests that theory of mind and empathy relate differentially to factors of schizotypy. The current study assessed 686 undergraduate students and used structural equation modeling to examine links between a four-factor model of schizotypy with performance on measures of theory of mind (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test [MIE]) and empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI]). Schizotypy was assessed using three self-report measures which were simultaneously entered into the model. Results revealed that the Negative factor of schizotypy showed a negative relationship with the Empathy factor, which was primarily driven by the Empathic Concern subscale of the IRI and the No Close Friends and Constricted Affect subscales of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. These findings are consistent with a growing body of literature suggesting a relatively specific relationship between negative schizotypy and empathy, and are consistent with several previous studies that found no relationship between MIE performance and schizotypy.

Prominent theoretical models and existing data implicate interpersonal factors in the development and maintenance of suicidal behavior and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). However, no known study has yet used computerized behavioral tasks to objectively assess responses to interpersonal conflict/collaboration among teens engaged in NSSI or having made a suicide attempt. The current study, therefore, compared interpersonal functioning indexed by the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) task among three mutually exclusive groups, adolescents (ages 13-17): engaged in NSSI only without history of a suicide attempt (n=26); who made a suicide attempt without history of NSSI (n=26); and typically developing controls (n=26). Participants also completed the Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure to assess their general sensitivity to/awareness of others' behaviors and feelings. No significant between-group differences were found in PD task performance; however, compared to typically developing control participants and those who had made a suicide attempt, the NSSI group reported significantly more stress during the task. Additionally, NSSI participants rated themselves as more interpersonally sensitive compared to both attempters and typically developing controls. Given the lack of knowledge about whether these groups either differentially activate the same circuitry during stressful interpersonal interactions or instead rely on alternative, compensatory circuits, future work using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging is warranted.

Research indicates that some individuals who were maltreated in childhood demonstrate biases in social information processing. However, the mechanisms through which these biases develop remain unclear-one possible mechanism is via attachment-related processes. Childhood maltreatment increases risk for insecure attachment. The internal working models of self and others associated with insecure attachment may impact the processing of socially relevant information, particularly emotion conveyed in facial expressions. We investigated associations among child abuse, attachment anxiety and avoidance, and attention biases for emotion in an adult population. Specifically, we examined how self-reported attachment influences the relationship between childhood abuse and attention bias for emotion. A dot probe task consisting of happy, threatening, and neutral female facial stimuli was used to assess possible biases in attention for socially relevant stimuli. Our findings indicate that attachment anxiety moderated the relationship between maltreatment and attention bias for happy emotion; among individuals with a child abuse history, attachment anxiety significantly predicted an attention bias away from happy facial stimuli.

In a prospective longitudinal study the authors examined the associations between parent locus of control of reinforcement (LOCR), measured before the birth of a child, and behavioral–emotional outcomes in that child at age 7 years. A total of 307 couples completed questionnaires regarding their emotional status and LOCR at their first prenatal care appointment. When their children turned 7 years old, teachers completed questionnaires regarding each participating child's behavior. Findings indicate significant associations between fathers’ prenatal LOCR and child outcomes, particularly hyperactivity in sons. Hyperactivity and behavioral–emotional problems in girls, in contrast, were better predicted by maternal prenatal emotional distress. Results provide evidence that paternal and maternal characteristics that predate the birth of a child relate to later behavioral outcomes in that child. Implications for prevention of child psychopathology are discussed.

Attention bias for socially threatening information, an empirically supported phenomenon, figures prominently in models of social phobia. However, all published studies examining this topic to date have relied on group means to describe attention bias patterns; research has yet to examine potential subgroups of attention bias among individuals with social phobia (e.g., vigilant or avoidant). Furthermore, almost no research has examined how attention biases in either direction may predict change in symptoms as a result of treatment.This study (N = 24) compared responses to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social phobia between individuals with avoidant and vigilant biases for threatening faces at pretreatment.Participants with avoidant biases reported significantly and clinically higher symptom levels at posttreatment than did those with vigilant biases.These findings suggest that an avoidant attention bias may be associated with reduced response to CBT for social phobia.

The FKBP5 gene product regulates glucocorticoid receptor (GR) sensitivity and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning and has been associated with many stress-related psychiatric disorders. The study of intermediate phenotypes, such as emotion-processing biases and their neural substrates, provides a way to clarify the mechanisms by which FKBP5 dysregulation mediates risk for psychiatric disorders.To examine whether allelic variations for a putatively functional single-nucleotide polymorphism associated with FKBP5 gene regulation (rs1360780) would relate differentially to attention bias for threat. this was measured through behavioral response on a dot probe task and hippocampal activation during task performance. Morphologic substrates of differential hippocampal response were also measured.Cross-sectional study conducted from 2010 to 2012 examining associations between genotype, behavioral response, and neural response (using functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI]) on the dot probe; voxel-based morphometry and global and local shape analyses were used to measure structural differences in hippocampi between genotype groups.Participants were recruited from primary care clinics of a publicly funded hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.An African American cohort of adults (N = 103) was separated into 2 groups by genotype: one genotype group included carriers of the rs1360780 T allele, which has been associated with increased risk for posttraumatic stress disorder and affective disorders; the other group did not carry this allele. Behavioral data included both sexes (N = 103); the MRI cohort (n = 36) included only women.Behavioral and fMRI (blood oxygen level-dependent) response, voxel-based morphometry, and shape analyses.Carriers of the rs1360780 T allele showed an attention bias toward threat compared with individuals without this allele (F1,90 = 5.19, P = .02). Carriers of this allele demonstrated corresponding increases in hippocampal activation and differences in morphology; global and local shape analyses revealed alterations in hippocampal shape for TT/TC compared with CC genotype groups.Genetic variants of FKBP5 may be associated with risk for stress-related psychiatric disorders via differential effects on hippocampal structure and function, resulting in altered attention response to perceived threat.