Neurocognitive risk phenotyping to predict mood symptoms in adolescence.

This study used machine learning to test whether neurocognitive variables predicted future manic or anhedonic symptoms in two adolescent samples risk-enriched for lifetime mood disorders (Sample 1, n = 73, ages = 13–25, M [SD] = 19.22 [2.49] years, 68% lifetime mood disorder) or familial mood disorders (Sample 2, n = 154, ages = 13–21, M [SD] = 16.46 [1.95] years, 62% first-degree family history of mood disorder). Participants completed cognitive testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging at baseline, for behavioral and neural measures of reward processing and executive functioning. Next, participants completed a daily diary procedure for 8–16 weeks. Penalized mixed-effects models identified neurocognitive predictors of future mood symptoms and stress-reactive changes in mood symptoms. Results included the following. In both samples, adolescents showing ventral corticostriatal reward hyposensitivity and lower reward performance reported more severe stress-reactive anhedonia. Poorer executive functioning behavior was associated with heightened anhedonia overall in Sample 1, but lower stress-reactive anhedonia in both samples. In Sample 1, adolescents showing ventral corticostriatal reward hypersensitivity and poorer executive functioning reported more severe stress-reactive manic symptoms. Clustering analyses identified, and replicated, five neurocognitive subgroups. Adolescents characterized by neural or behavioral reward hyposensitivities together with average-t...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research