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Military missions, especially those involving combat exposure, are associated with an increased risk of depression. Understanding the long-term course of depressive symptoms post-deployment is important to improve decision-making regarding deployment and mental health policies in the military. This study investigates trajectories of depressive symptoms in the Dutch army, exploring the influence of factors such as demographics, early-life trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and deployment stressors. A cohort of 1032 military men and women deployed to Afghanistan (2005–2008) was studied from pre- to 10 years post-deployment. Depressive and PTSD symptoms were assessed using the Symptom CheckList-90 and the Self-Rating Inventory for PTSD. Demographics, early trauma, and deployment experiences were collected at baseline and after deployment, respectively. Latent Class Growth Analysis was used to explore heterogeneity in trajectories of depressive symptoms over time. Four trajectories were found: resilient (65%), intermediate-stable (20%), symptomatic-chronic (9%), and late-onset-increasing (6%). The resilient group experienced fewer deployment stressors, while the symptomatic-chronic group reported more early life traumas. Trajectories with elevated depressive symptoms consistently demonstrated higher PTSD symptoms. Potential nonresponse bias and missing information due to the longitudinal design and extensive follow-up times. This study identified multiple trajectories of depressive symptoms in military personnel up to 10 years post-deployment, associated with early trauma, deployment stressors, adverse life events and PTSD symptoms. The prevalence of the resilient trajectory suggests a substantial level of resilience among deployed military personnel. These findings provide valuable insights and a foundation for further research. • Four depression trajectories were observed in deployed military personnel. • Healthy trajectories included resilient (65%) and intermediate-stable (20%). • Depression trajectories included symptomatic-chronic (9%) and late-onset-increasing. • Trajectories were associated with deployment stressors, life events and PTSD symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last years saw the release of several cross-country data sets generated by Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) - websites that "match" a respondent's position on various political attitudes with those of political parties or candidates. As they hold the information of a high number of respondents on a large number of political attitudes, these datasets are promising sources of data for political and social scientists. Yet, as with all cross-country data, we should first establish if they meet the requirements of good data quality and construct equivalence. Using data from the 2019 euandi VAA, I employ Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to study the behavior of 6 items that form an economic left-right scale. Doing so for 28 countries, I find that not only the quality of the data differs between countries, but the underlying structure as well. This means that for some countries the data is of too low a quality and thus not useful for cross-country analysis. While this does not invalidate VAA data in general, it does limit it. In addition, this paper illustrates the use of MCA as a pre-processing technique for establishing the quality of both VAA data and cross-country data in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the design of voting advice applications (VAAs) is witnessing an increasing amount of attention, one aspect has until now been overlooked: its visualisations. This is remarkable, as it are those visualisations that communicate to the user the advice of the VAA. Therefore, this article aims to provide a first look at which visualisations VAAs adopt, why they adopt them, and how users comprehend them. For this, I will look at how design choices, specifically those on matching, influence the type of visualisation VAAs not only do but also have to, use. Second, I will report the results of a small-scale experiment that looked if all users comprehend similar visualisations in the same way. Here, I find that this is often not the case and that the interpretations of the users often differ. These first results suggest that VAA visualisations are wrongly underappreciated and demand closer attention of VAA designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A neural pathway from prefrontal cortex (PFC) to dorsal striatum (DS) has been suggested to mediate cognitive control of behavior, including proactive inhibitory control and attention. However, a direct causal demonstration thereof is lacking. Here, we show that selective chemogenetic silencing of corticostriatal PFC neurons in rats increases premature responses. Wireless single-unit electrophysiological recordings of optogenetically identified corticostriatal PFC neurons revealed that the majority of these neurons encode behavioral trial outcome with persistent changes in firing rate. Attentional parameters were not affected by silencing corticostriatal PFC neurons, suggesting that these projection neurons encode a specific subset of cognitive behaviors. Compared to the general non-identified neuronal population in the PFC, frontostriatal neurons showed selective engagement during periods of inhibitory control. Our results demonstrate a role for corticostriatal neurons in inhibitory control and possibly suggest that distinct domains of cognitive control over behavior are encoded by specific projection neuron populations. • Silencing of dorsal frontostriatal projection neurons impairs behavioral inhibition • Frontostriatal neurons are predominantly persistently activated or silenced • Frontostriatal neurons show selective activity dynamics within the mPFC • Activity of frontostriatal neurons is related to behavioral control Terra et al. investigate the role of dorsal mPFC-to-medial dorsal striatum projection neurons in behavioral inhibition. Chemogenetic silencing of frontostriatal neurons results in a loss of behavioral inhibition. Within the mPFC, frontostriatal neurons selectively show persistent changes in activity, related to successful behavioral inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We sleep almost one-third of our lives and sleep plays an important role in critical brain functions like memory formation and consolidation. The role of sleep in cerebellar processing, however, constitutes an enigma in the field of neuroscience; we know little about cerebellar sleep-physiology, cerebro–cerebellar interactions during sleep, or the contributions of sleep to cerebellum-dependent memory consolidation. Likewise, we do not understand why cerebellar malfunction can lead to changes in the sleep–wake cycle and sleep disorders. In this review, we evaluate how sleep and cerebellar processing may influence one another and highlight which scientific routes and technical approaches could be taken to uncover the mechanisms underlying these interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]