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Youth mentoring programs have grown in popularity, both within the United States (U.S.) and abroad, as an intervention to support youth with common behavioral and emotional difficulties. However, it is unclear whether certain dimensions of youth risk may diminish the positive impact of formalized mentoring relationships. The current study therefore examined whether youth emotion regulation, a transdiagnostic risk factor for both externalizing and internalizing behavioral difficulties, predicted mentoring relationship quality and the likelihood of early match closure. Participants included 1,298 randomized mentor-youth dyads from two nationwide mentoring programs, one with chapters across the U.S. (youth: 56% female; 37% White), and another with chapters across Mexico (youth: 49% female; 100% non-Indigenous). At baseline, youth completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA). At program completion, youth and mentors completed measures of mentoring relationship quality. Multigroup structural equation models of youth outcomes revealed that greater youth use of cognitive reappraisal predicted better mentoring relationship quality in both countries when co-varying for sex, and that this relationship was stronger for mentor-youth pairs in the U.S. compared to those in Mexico. These findings have important implications for understanding the ways in which youth characteristics might shape the quality and impact of mentoring relationships across different cultural settings.

The perinatal period is marked by a higher risk of experiencing depressive, anxiety, and/or trauma-related symptoms, a phenomenon that affects millions of individuals each year. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms commonly co-occur but have rarely been examined together beyond prevalence estimates in the perinatal period. Our study aimed to explore patterns of associations among OCD and PTSD symptoms to elucidate within- and between-person effects and how these effects may change over time. Participants (N = 270) were recruited during pregnancy from an academic medical center affiliated with a midwestern university. PTSD, OCD, and depressive symptoms were assessed at pregnancy, 4, 8, and 12 weeks postpartum. A panel graphical vector autoregression model was used to estimate networks. The temporal network provided information regarding directed predictive effects between symptoms, and hyperarousal, neutralizing, and ordering were the most stable and predictive symptoms across time. The contemporaneous network, which yields undirected partial correlations between symptoms at a given moment, indicated that there were positive associations between intrusions and avoidance, hyperarousal and negative alterations in cognitions and mood, as well as between hyperarousal and dysphoria. This study identified hyperarousal and neutralizing as the PTSD and OCD symptoms with the strongest stability, predictive power, and association with other symptoms. Clinically, this indicates that screening for hyperarousal and neutralizing symptoms may identify individuals who could maximally benefit from treatment in the perinatal period. General Scientific Summary: This study elucidates the posttraumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms most important to assess during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Network analysis determined that negative alterations in cognitions and mood, obsessing, checking, and avoidance symptoms as the symptoms with the highest relative importance in the between-person network, while hyperarousal, neutralizing, and ordering symptoms were the most stable and predictive symptoms across time. Posttraumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms are not routinely assessed by health care professionals, yet results suggest identified symptoms warrant closer attention in clinical and obstetric settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) targets psychological flexibility and the ability to identify behavioral function in context. Properly measuring these constructs is imperative to understanding whether these processes are mechanisms of change in treatment. The current study examined the factor structure of the Comprehensive Assessment of ACT processes (CompACT) and Tacting of Function scale (TOF) in community-dwelling older adults. Factor structure was examined with CFA. Eighty community-dwelling older adults completed questionnaires prior to an intervention. While the original 23-item, 3-factor structure of the CompACT demonstrated inadequate fit, a modified 15-item, 3-factor structure demonstrated adequate fit. The original 1-factor structure of the TOF demonstrated inadequate fit. A modified 2-factor structure of the TOF fit significantly better than the original 1-factor structure; however, this model also demonstrated inadequate fit. Examining the factor structure of the CompACT and TOF in an older adult sample contributes to the field's understanding of the constructs of psychological flexibility and tacting ability and to the clinical utility of these measures in an understudied sample. These findings provide preliminary support for the use of a short-form version of the CompACT to measure therapeutic processes of change in community-dwelling older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aimed to use ecologically valid assessments to examine within- and between-person associations between adolescents' daily stress and unhealthy eating behaviours. Design: Daily diary assessments were used to investigate whether daily perceived stress and negative life events were associated with naturally occurring eating behaviours across the span of one week in a community-based sample of 88 adolescents. Results: Logistic hierarchical models demonstrated between-person effects of stress on eating, such that adolescents who endorsed greater perceived stress and more daily negative life events, on average, across the one-week period, also reported elevated rates of craving tasty foods and trouble stopping the consumption of tasty foods. Within-person findings showed that some eating behaviours were associated with day-to-day, within-person fluctuations in stressful experiences. On days marked by higher than usual perceived stress (relative to one's own average levels during the week), adolescents reported an increased likelihood of eating to cope with difficult emotions. Conclusions: Findings indicate that daily fluctuations in stress may contribute to unhealthy eating behaviours during adolescence, and that associations between stress and eating behaviour may differ depending on whether they are assessed within-person or between-persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was first identified in 1869, but it wasn't until the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge that widespread attention was drawn to the disease. Since then, substantial research has been dedicated to developing treatments for ALS. Despite this, only three drugs - riluzole, edaravone and AMX0035, have been approved for clinical use, and they can only temporarily alleviate mild symptoms without significant disease modification or cure. Therefore, there remains a critical unmet need to identify disease modifying or curative therapies for ALS. The higher incidence and more severe progression of ALS and FTLD (frontotemporal lobar degeneration) observed in men and postmenopausal woman compared to young women suggests that sex hormones may significantly influence disease onset and progression. In both animal models and human clinical studies, 17β estradiol (E2) has been shown to delay and improve the outcomes of many neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we examined the role of TDP-43 in the regulation of estrogen-related enzymes, CYP19A1 and CYP3A4. In addition, we examined the impact of curcumin on the regulation of estrogen E2 levels and TDP-43-associated neuropathy as a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of FTLD and ALS., Methods: Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice was used as a model of ALS/FTLD to examine the expression patterns of E2 and its biosynthesis and degradation enzymes, CYP19A1 and CYP3A4. Moreover, the molecular mechanisms and the potency of solid lipid curcumin particles (SLCP) as an E2 replacement therapy for TDP-43 associated neuropathy was analyzed. We further examined the survival rates and the pathological TDP43 patterns in female and male Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice administrated with or without SLCP. In addition, the changed expression levels of enzymes corresponding to E2 biosynthesis and degradation in the spinal cord of female and male Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice with or without SLCP were determined., Results: We found that in addition to E2, the expression patterns of CYP19A1 and CYP3A4 proteins differed between Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice compared to wild-type control, suggesting that toxic phosphorylated TDP43 oligomers may disrupt the balance between CYP19A1 and CYP3A4 expression, leading to reduced estrogen biosynthesis and accelerated degradation. In addition, we found that oral administration of SLCP prolonged the survival rates in female Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice and significantly reduced the pathological insoluble phosphorylated TDP-43 species. Furthermore, SLCP attenuated disease progression associated with TDP-43-related neuropathies through modulating estrogen biosynthesis and the activity of CYP450 enzymes., Conclusions: Our results showed that Prp-TDP-43 A315T mice exhibit altered estradiol levels. Moreover, we demonstrated the efficacy of SLCP as an estrogen replacement therapy in mitigating TDP-43-associated disease progression and pathogenesis. These findings suggest that SLCP could be a promising strategy to induce E2 expression for the treatment of ALS and FTLD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)