The present study explored how individual differences and development of gray matter architecture in inferior frontal gyri (IFG), anterior cingulate (ACC), and inferior parietal lobe (IPL) relate to development of response inhibition as measured by both the Stop Signal Task (SST) and the Go/No-Go (GNG) task in a longitudinal sample of healthy adolescents and young adults. Reliability of behavioral and neural measures was also explored.

A total of 145 individuals contributed data from the second through fifth timepoints of an accelerated longitudinal study focused on adolescent brain and behavioral development at the University of Minnesota. At baseline, participants were 9 to 23 years of age and were typically-developing. Assessment waves were spaced approximately 2 years apart. Behavioral measures of response inhibition collected at each assessment included GNG Commission Errors (CE) and the SST Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT). Structural T1 MRI scans were collected on a Siemens 3 T Tim Trio and processed with the longitudinal Freesurfer 6.0 pipeline to yield cortical thickness (CT) and surface area values. Regions of interest based on the Desikan-Killiany-Tourville atlas included IFG regions (pars opercularis (PO) and pars triangularis (PT)), ACC and IPL. The cuneus and global brain measures were evaluated as control regions. Retest stability of all measures was calculated using the psych package in R. Mixed linear effects modeling using the lme4 R package identified whether age-based trajectories for SSRTs and GNG CEs best fit linear, quadratic, or inverse curve. Then, disaggregated between- and within-subjects effects of regional cortical architecture measures were added to longitudinal behavioral models to identify individual differences and developmental effects, respectively.

Both response inhibition metrics demonstrated fair reliability and were best fit by an inverse age trajectory. Neural measures demonstrated excellent retest stability (all ICCs > 0.834). Age-based analyses of regional CT identified heterogeneous patterns of development, including linear trajectories for ACC and inverse age trajectories for bilateral PT. Individuals with thinner left PO showed worse performance on both response inhibition tasks. SSRTs were related to individual differences in right PO thickness and surface area. A developmental pattern was observed for right PT cortical thickness, where thinning over time was related to better GNG performance. Lower surface area of the right PT was related to worse GNG performance. No individual differences or developmental patterns were observed for the ACC, IPL, cuneus, or global metrics.

This study examined the adolescent development of response inhibition and its association with cortical architecture in the IFG, ACC and IPL. Separate response inhibition tasks demonstrated similar developmental patterns with steepest improvements in early adolescence and relationships with left PO thickness, but each measure had unique relationships with other IFG regions. This study indicates that a region of the IFG, the par opercularis, relates to both individual difference and developmental change in response inhibition. These patterns suggest brain-behavior association that could be further explored in functional imaging studies and that may index, in vulnerable individuals, risk for psychopathology.

People with neuropsychiatric symptoms often experience delay in accurate diagnosis. Although cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light (CSF NfL) shows promise in distinguishing neurodegenerative disorders (ND) from psychiatric disorders (PSY), its accuracy in a diagnostically challenging cohort longitudinally is unknown.

We collected longitudinal diagnostic information (mean = 36 months) from patients assessed at a neuropsychiatry service, categorising diagnoses as ND/mild cognitive impairment/other neurological disorders (ND/MCI/other) and PSY. We pre-specified NfL > 582 pg/mL as indicative of ND/MCI/other.

Diagnostic category changed from initial to final diagnosis for 23% (49/212) of patients. NfL predicted the final diagnostic category for 92% (22/24) of these and predicted final diagnostic category overall (ND/MCI/other vs. PSY) in 88% (187/212), compared to 77% (163/212) with clinical assessment alone.

CSF NfL improved diagnostic accuracy, with potential to have led to earlier, accurate diagnosis in a real-world setting using a pre-specified cut-off, adding weight to translation of NfL into clinical practice.

Much of the psychosocial care people receive after major incidents and disasters is informal and is provided by families, friends, peer groups and wider social networks. Terrorist attacks have increased in recent years. Therefore, there is a need to better understand and facilitate the informal social support given to survivors.

We addressed three questions. First, what is the nature of any informal support-seeking and provision for people who experienced the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack? Second, who provided support, and what makes it helpful? Third, to what extent do support groups based on shared experience of the attack operate as springboards to recovery?

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of 18 physically non-injured survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing, registered at the NHS Manchester Resilience Hub. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed.

Participants often felt constrained from sharing their feelings with friends and families, who were perceived as unable to understand their experiences. They described a variety of forms of helpful informal social support, including social validation, which was a feature of support provided by others based on shared experience. For many participants, accessing groups based on shared experience was an important factor in their coping and recovery, and was a springboard to personal growth.

We recommend that people who respond to survivors’ psychosocial and mental healthcare needs after emergencies and major incidents should facilitate interventions for survivors and their social networks that maximise the benefits of shared experience and social validation.

Distress after major incidents is widespread among survivors. The great majority do not meet the criteria for mental health disorders and rely on psychosocial care provided by their informal networks and official response services. There is a need to better understand their experiences of distress and psychosocial care needs.

The aims of our study were to enhance understanding of the experience of distress among people present at the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, identify their experiences of psychosocial care after the incident and learn how to better deliver and target effective psychosocial care following major incidents.

We conducted a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 18 physically non-injured survivors of the Manchester Arena attack, who registered with the NHS Manchester Resilience Hub.

Distress was ubiquitous, with long-lasting health and social consequences. Initial reluctance to seek help from services was also common. Early and open access to authoritative sources of information and emotional support, and organised events for survivors, were viewed as helpful interventions. Inappropriate forms of psychosocial and mental healthcare were common and potent stressors that affected coping and recovery.

This paper extends our understanding of how people react to major events. Provision for the large group of people who are distressed and require psychosocial care may be inadequate after many incidents. There is a substantial agenda for developing awareness of people's needs for psychosocial interventions, and training practitioners to deliver them. The findings have substantial implications for policy and service design.

Cannabis use is associated with relative cognitive weaknesses as observed by cross-sectional as well as longitudinal research. Longitudinal studies, controlling for relevant confounds, are necessary to differentiate premorbid from post-initiation contributions to these effects.

We followed a sample of adolescents and young adults across ten years. Participants provided neurocognitive data and substance use information at two-year intervals. Participants who initiated cannabis and/or alcohol use were identified (n = 86) and split into alcohol-only initiators (n = 39) and infrequent (n = 29) and moderately frequent (n = 18) cannabis initiators. Participants completed the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Group differences before and after substance use initiation and the extent to which alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis use frequencies contributed to cognitive functions over time were examined.

After controlling for parental education, RAVLT new learning was worse in moderately frequent cannabis users prior to use initiation. RAVLT total learning and delayed recall showed significant declines from pre- to post-initiation in moderately frequent cannabis users. Regression analyses confirmed that frequencies of cannabis, but not alcohol, use contributed to post-initiation variations. Nicotine use showed an independent negative association with delayed memory. Findings for the IGT were not significant.

Verbal learning and memory may be disrupted following the initiation of moderately frequent cannabis use while decreased new learning may represent a premorbid liability. Our use of a control group of alcohol-only users adds interpretive clarity to the findings and suggests that future studies should carefully control for comorbid substance use.

The ability to manage emotions is an important social-cognitive domain impaired in schizophrenia and linked to functional outcome. The goal of our study was to examine the impact of cognitive enhancement therapy (CET) on the ability to manage emotions and brain functional connectivity in early-course schizophrenia.

Participants were randomly assigned to CET (n = 55) or an enriched supportive therapy (EST) control group (n = 45). The resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans and measures of emotion management performances were collected at baseline, 9, and 18 months follow-up. The final sample consisted of 37 CET and 25 EST participants, including 19 CET and 12 EST participants with imaging data. Linear mixed-effects models investigated the impact of treatment on emotion management and functional connectivity from the amygdala to ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).

The CET group showed significant improvement over time in emotion management compared to EST. Neither functional connectivity changes nor main group differences were observed following treatment. However, a significant between-group interaction showed that improved emotion management ability was associated with increased functional connectivity between the left amygdala and the left dlPFC in the CET group exclusively.

Our results replicate the previous work demonstrating that CET is effective at improving some aspects of social cognition in schizophrenia. We found evidence that improvement in emotion management may be associated with a change in amygdala-dlPFC connectivity. This fronto-limbic circuit may provide a mechanistic link between the biology of emotion management processes that can be enhanced in individuals with schizophrenia.