The vulnerability-stress-model has gained much attention in mental disorders as it nicely captures the multifactorial nature of the disorders. During the last years, research activities aimed to identify biological and genetic components that operate in interaction with psychosocial factors like stressful life-events and urbanicity within this model increasing or lowering ones vulnerability for mental disorders.
In our symposium we will highlight new brain imaging findings of environmental and genetic risk factors in depressive and bipolar disorders and schizophrenia extending this focus to epigenetic mechanisms.
T. Kircher reports about new, transdiagnostic data on different environmental risk factors for mental illness such as high paternal age, childhood abuse and migration as well as genetic factors on structural and functional brain changes.
H. Walter will present data from and representative and non-representative studies on the role of resilience factors for mental health in the COVID19 pandemic from with a focus on positive reappraisal, attitudes and rewarded learning and their possible neural mechanisms.
H. Grabe will present new data on genome-wide gene-gene-interactions involving the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (s/l) in subjects with and without childhood trauma. Data will be analysed from UK Biobank and the Studies of Health in Pomerania. Pathway analysis will be performed to uncover biological pathways that are involved in the moderation of the s versus l allele of 5-HTTLPR. Outcomes will comprise questionnaire assessing mental distress and structural brain changes measure with MRI.
A. Meyer-Lindenberg will present new results on convergent neural mechanisms mediating resilience mechanism in the natural environment including green space exposure, physical activity and social interaction.
The neural effects of genetic and environmental risk for mental illness: is a dimensional, transdiagnostic approach the way forward?
Tilo T. J. Kircher, Marburg (Germany)
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Tilo T. J. Kircher, Marburg (Germany)
Introduction: More than a century of research on the neurobiological underpinnings of major psychiatric disorders (major depressive disorder [MDD], bipolar disorder [BD], schizophrenia [SZ], and schizoaffective disorder [SZA]) has been unable to identify diagnostic markers. An alternative approach is to study dimensional psychopathological syndromes that cut across categorical diagnoses. The aim of the current study was to identify gray matter volume (GMV) correlates of transdiagnostic symptom dimensions.
Methods: We tested the association of 5 psychopathological factors with GMV using multiple regression models in a sample of N = 1069 patients meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria for MDD (n = 818), BD (n = 132), and SZ/SZA (n = 119). T1-weighted brain images were acquired with 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging and preprocessed with CAT12. Interactions analyses (diagnosis × psychopathological factor) were performed to test whether local GMV associations were driven by DSM-IV diagnosis. We further tested syndrome specific regions of interest (ROIs).
Results: Whole brain analysis showed a significant negative association of the positive formal thought disorder factor with GMV in the right middle frontal gyrus, the paranoid-hallucinatory syndrome in the right fusiform, and the left middle frontal gyri. ROI analyses further showed additional negative associations, including the negative syndrome with bilateral frontal opercula, positive formal thought disorder with the left amygdala-hippocampus complex, and the paranoid-hallucinatory syndrome with the left angular gyrus. None of the GMV associations interacted with DSM-IV diagnosis.
Conclusions: We found associations between psychopathological syndromes and regional GMV independent of diagnosis. Our findings open a new avenue for neurobiological research across disorders, using syndrome-based approaches rather than categorical diagnoses.
Convergent neural mechanisms mediating resilience to psychiatric disorders in the natural environment
Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Mannheim (Germany)
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Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Mannheim (Germany)
The natural and social environment is a key modifier of individual risk and resilience profiles, but the underling mechanisms are only now coming into focus. Using a combination of multimodal neuroimaging and ecological ambulatory assessment in a epidemiological cohort, the PEZ study, we examine three factors, non-exercise activity, green space exposure, and sociial contact, that have been hypothesized to be beneficial for well-being and in mitigating mental health risk, especially in the urban environment. We show convergent effects on aspects of daily-life well-being, in accordance with that hypothesis. In neuroimaging, we show that the beneficial effects are tied to brain volume alterations in cingulate cortex subregions and that green space may mitigate lateral prefrontal regulation of amygdala. These neural signatures converge with previous work on environmental risk and highlight a brain system centered on the cingulate cortex that can be exploited to further specify beneficial environmental factors with a view to shaping intervention strategies in an evolving world.