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Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused a global health crisis. It also leads to different types of psychosocial problems in society as a result of preventive health measures and the disease itself. Among others, psychopathological symptoms and suicide behaviors have increased. The PsicorecurSOS COVID-19 online protocol was designed. At baseline, 1020 Spanish adults were assessed, during confinement, for sociodemographics, fear of COVID-19, anxious-depressive symptoms, covitality, and suicidal ideation. Reliability, descriptive, and frequency analyses were carried out, and the computer tool SPSS PROCESS was used to carry out a conditional process analysis (model 59). A total of 595 participants were included (58.30% response rate from baseline; mean age = 37.18 [SD = 13.30]; 72.44% female). Regarding suicidal ideation, 12% responded differently to 'never,' 19.3% exceeded the cutoff point on the anxiety scale, and 24% on the depression scale. Moderate mediation analysis explained 27% of the variance in suicidal ideation. In addition, the indirect effect of moderate mediation was significant (b = -.004, SE = .002 with the presence of covitality; and b = .01, SE = .003 absence of covitality). Sex and age did not influence the overall outcome of the model. The data from this study can serve as a starting point for generating social and health treatment initiatives based on self-examination of anxiety-depressive symptoms and increasing socio-emotional skills in order to prevent and alleviate the psychosocial effects of the pandemic., Author(s): Victoria Soto-Sanz [sup.1] [sup.2] , Raquel Falcó [sup.1] [sup.2] , Juan C. Marzo [sup.1] [sup.2] , José A. Piqueras [sup.1] [sup.2] , Alfonso Lopez-Nuñez [sup.2] , Agustín E. Martínez-González [...]

Everyday sadism refers to the non-clinical personality trait of sadism, someone who obtains pleasure from inflicting pain or from the suffer of other people. This construct, in the recent years, has attracted more attention to researches, conducting to the development of different measures to assess it. With a sample of N = 2160 we studied the psychometric properties of three everyday sadism scales, the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SISS), the Comprehensive Assessment of Sadistic Tendencies (CAST), and the Assessment of Sadistic Personality (ASP). For the three scales we found (1) good reliability coefficients, (2) adequate fit for the factor structure theorized for each of the measures, (3) significant gender differences in the trait, where males obtain higher scores than females in all the instruments, and (4) negative correlations with the HEXACO super traits excluding openness and positive with the Dark Triad traits. We concluded that the psychometric properties of the Spanish versions of the SISS, CAST and ASP present good psychometric values in line with the original measures and previous translations., Author(s): David Pineda [sup.1] [sup.2] , José A. Piqueras [sup.1] [sup.3] , Manuel Galán [sup.1] , Ana Martínez-Martínez [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.26811.3c, 0000 0001 0586 4893, Forensic Psychology Unit [...]

BackgroundStudies of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have revealed a strong multigenic basis with the identification of hundreds of ASD susceptibility genes. ASD is characterized by social deficits and a range of other phenotypes, implicating complex genetics and involvement of a variety of brain regions. However, how mutations and mis-expression of select gene sets are associated with the behavioral components of ASD remains unknown. We reasoned that for genes to be associated with ASD core behaviors they must be: (1) expressed in brain regions relevant to ASD social behaviors and (2) expressed during the ASD susceptible window of brain development.MethodsFocusing on the amygdala, a brain region whose dysfunction has been highly implicated in the social component of ASD, we mined publicly available gene expression databases to identify ASD-susceptibility genes expressed during human and mouse amygdala development. We found that a large cohort of known ASD susceptibility genes is expressed in the developing human and mouse amygdala. We further performed analysis of single-nucleus RNA-seq (snRNA-seq) data from microdissected amygdala tissue from five ASD and five control human postmortem brains ranging in age from 4 to 20 years to elucidate cell type specificity of amygdala-expressed genes and their dysregulation in ASD.ResultsOur analyses revealed that of the high-ranking ASD susceptibility genes, 80 are expressed in both human and mouse amygdala during fetal to early postnatal stages of development. Our human snRNA-seq analyses revealed cohorts of genes with altered expression in the ASD amygdala postnatally, especially within excitatory neurons, with dysregulated expression of seven genes predicted from our datamining pipeline.LimitationsWe were limited by the ages for which we were able to obtain human tissue; therefore, the results from our datamining pipeline approach will require validation, to the extent possible, in human tissue from earlier developmental stages.ConclusionsOur pipeline narrows down the number of amygdala-expressed genes possibly involved in the social pathophysiology of ASD. Our human single-nucleus gene expression analyses revealed that ASD is characterized by changes in gene expression in specific cell types in the early postnatal amygdala.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder in children, with genetic factors accounting for 75-80% of the phenotypic variance. Recent studies have suggested that ADHD patients might present with atypical central myelination that can persist into adulthood. Given the essential role of sphingolipids in myelin formation and maintenance, we explored genetic variation in sphingolipid metabolism genes for association with ADHD risk. Whole-exome genotyping was performed in three independent cohorts from disparate regions of the world, for a total of 1520 genotyped subjects. Cohort 1 (MTA (Multimodal Treatment study of children with ADHD) sample, 371 subjects) was analyzed as the discovery cohort, while cohorts 2 (Paisa sample, 298 subjects) and 3 (US sample, 851 subjects) were used for replication. A set of 58 genes was manually curated based on their roles in sphingolipid metabolism. A targeted exploration for association between ADHD and 137 markers encoding for common and rare potentially functional allelic variants in this set of genes was performed in the screening cohort. Single- and multi-locus additive, dominant and recessive linear mixed-effect models were used. During discovery, we found statistically significant associations between ADHD and variants in eight genes (GALC, CERS6, SMPD1, SMPDL3B, CERS2, FADS3, ELOVL5, and CERK). Successful local replication for associations with variants in GALC, SMPD1, and CERS6 was demonstrated in both replication cohorts. Variants rs35785620, rs143078230, rs398607, and rs1805078, associated with ADHD in the discovery or replication cohorts, correspond to missense mutations with predicted deleterious effects. Expression quantitative trait loci analysis revealed an association between rs398607 and increased GALC expression in the cerebellum.

Genetic factors are strongly implicated in the susceptibility to develop externalizing syndromes such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and substance use disorder (SUD). Variants in the ADGRL3 (LPHN3) gene predispose to ADHD and predict ADHD severity, disruptive behaviors comorbidity, long-term outcome, and response to treatment. In this study, we investigated whether variants within ADGRL3 are associated with SUD, a disorder that is frequently co-morbid with ADHD. Using family-based, case-control, and longitudinal samples from disparate regions of the world (n = 2698), recruited either for clinical, genetic epidemiological or pharmacogenomic studies of ADHD, we assembled recursive-partitioning frameworks (classification tree analyses) with clinical, demographic, and ADGRL3 genetic information to predict SUD susceptibility. Our results indicate that SUD can be efficiently and robustly predicted in ADHD participants. The genetic models used remained highly efficient in predicting SUD in a large sample of individuals with severe SUD from a psychiatric institution that were not ascertained on the basis of ADHD diagnosis, thus identifying ADGRL3 as a risk gene for SUD. Recursive-partitioning analyses revealed that rs4860437 was the predominant predictive variant. This new methodological approach offers novel insights into higher order predictive interactions and offers a unique opportunity for translational application in the clinical assessment of patients at high risk for SUD.

Background and objectives: The premanifest phase of Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by the absence of motor symptoms and exhibits structural changes in imaging that precede clinical manifestation. This study aimed to analyze volumetric changes identified through brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) processed using artificial intelligence (AI) software in premanifest HD individuals, focusing on the relationship between CAG triplet expansion and structural biomarkers. Methods: The study included 36 individuals descending from families affected by HD in the Department of Atlántico. Sociodemographic data were collected, followed by peripheral blood sampling to extract genomic DNA for quantifying CAG trinucleotide repeats in the Huntingtin gene. Brain volumes were evaluated using AI software (Entelai/IMEXHS, v4.3.4) based on MRI volumetric images. Correlations between brain volumes and variables such as age, sex, and disease status were determined. All analyses were conducted using SPSS (v. IBM SPSS Statistics 26), with significance set at p < 0.05. Results: The analysis of brain volumes according to CAG repeat expansion shows that individuals with ≥40 repeats evidence significant increases in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume and subcortical structures such as the amygdalae and left caudate nucleus, along with marked reductions in cerebral white matter, the cerebellum, brainstem, and left pallidum. In contrast, those with <40 repeats show minimal or moderate volumetric changes, primarily in white matter and CSF. Conclusions: These findings suggest that CAG expansion selectively impacts key brain regions, potentially influencing the progression of Huntington's disease, and that AI in neuroimaging could identify structural biomarkers long before clinical symptoms appear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dark Triad refers to three malevolent personality traits, namely narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. The Dirty Dozen (DD) and Short Dark Triad (SD3) have been developed as concise scales for measuring these traits. This study examined the psychometrics properties of the Spanish version of the DD and SD3 in a non-clinical population recruited via the internet (N = 454). For both scales, we found (1) an adequate fit for the hypothesized factor structure with three separate but correlated malevolent traits; (2) mostly moderate to good reliability coefficients; (3) significant gender differences with males scoring higher on Dark Triad traits than females; (4) theoretically meaningful links with Eysenck's personality supertraits; (5) positive correlations with externalizing and - albeit to a lesser extent -internalizing psychiatric symptoms; and (6) that most Dark Triad traits were positively associated with a socially desirable response tendency. It can be concluded that the Spanish DD and SD3 display highly similar psychometric qualities as the original scales and other translations of these measures., Author(s): David Pineda [sup.1], Bonifacio Sandín [sup.1], Peter Muris [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.10702.34, 0000 0001 2308 8920, National Distance Education University (UNED), , C/ Juan del Rosal 10, 28040, [...]

Background: People with Huntington's disease (HD) exhibit neurocognitive alterations throughout the disease, including deficits in social cognitive processes such as Theory of Mind (ToM). Objective: The aim is to identify methodologies and ToM instruments employed in HD, alongside relevant findings, within the scientific literature of the past two decades. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search for relevant papers in the SCOPUS, PubMed, APA-PsyArticles, Web of Science, Redalyc, and SciELO databases. In the selection process, we specifically focused on studies that included individuals with a confirmed genetic status of HD and investigated ToM functioning in patients with and without motor symptoms. The systematic review followed the PRISMA protocol. Results: A total of 27 papers were selected for this systematic review, covering the period from 2003 to 2023. The findings consistently indicate that ToM is globally affected in patients with manifest motor symptoms. In individuals without motor symptoms, impairments are focused on the affective dimensions of ToM. Conclusions: Based on our analysis, affective ToM could be considered a potential biomarker for HD. Therefore, it is recommended that ToM assessment be included as part of neuropsychological evaluation protocols in clinical settings. Suchinclusion could aid in the identification of early stages of the disease and provide new opportunities for treatment, particularly with emerging drugs like antisense oligomers. The Prospero registration number for this review is CRD42020209769. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terrestrial vertebrates, the olfactory system is divided into main (MOS) and accessory (AOS) components that process both volatile and nonvolatile cues to generate appropriate behavioral responses. While much is known regarding the molecular diversity of neurons that comprise the MOS, less is known about the AOS. Here, focusing on the vomeronasal organ (VNO), the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB), and the medial amygdala (MeA), we reveal that populations of neurons in the AOS can be molecularly subdivided based on their ongoing or prior expression of the transcription factors Foxp2 or Dbx1, which delineate separate populations of GABAergic output neurons in the MeA. We show that a majority of AOB neurons that project directly to the MeA are of the Foxp2 lineage. Using single‐neuron patch‐clamp electrophysiology, we further reveal that in addition to sex‐specific differences across lineage, the frequency of excitatory input to MeA Dbx1‐ and Foxp2‐lineage neurons differs between sexes. Together, this work uncovers a novel molecular diversity of AOS neurons, and lineage and sex differences in patterns of connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]