Biology subjects

Romer, A. L.

Publications and source records attributed to Romer, A. L..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2019

A pervasively thinner neocortex is a transdiagnostic feature of general psychopathology

ObjectiveNeuroimaging research has revealed that structural brain alterations are common across broad diagnostic families of disorders rather than specific to a single psychiatric disorder. Such overlap in the structural brain correlates of mental disorders mirrors already well-documented phenotypic comorbidity of psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses, which can be indexed by a general psychopathology or p factor. We hypothesized that if general psychopathology drives the convergence of structural alterations common across disorders then 1) there should be few associations unique to any one diagnostic family of disorders, and 2) associations with the p factor should overlap with those for the broader diagnostic families. MethodsAnalyses were conducted on structural MRI and psychopathology data collected from 861 members of the population representative Dunedin Study at age 45. ResultsStudy members with high scores across three broad diagnostic families of disorders (Externalizing, Internalizing, Thought Disorder) exhibited highly overlapping patterns of reduced global and widely distributed parcel-wise neocortical thickness. Study members with high p factor scores exhibited patterns of reduced global and parcel-wise neocortical thickness nearly identical to those associated with the three broad diagnostic families. ConclusionsA pattern of pervasively reduced neocortical thickness appears common across all forms of mental disorders and may represent a transdiagnostic feature of general psychopathology. As has been documented with regard to symptoms and diagnoses, the underlying brain structural correlates of mental disorders may not exhibit specificity, the continued pursuit of which may limit progress toward more effective strategies for etiological understanding, prevention, and intervention.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Reproducibility of Structural Brain Alterations Associated with Transdiagnostic Risk for Mental Illness: Evidence from a Population-Representative Birth Cohort

Transdiagnostic research has identified a general psychopathology factor - often called the p factor - that accounts for shared variation across internalizing, externalizing, and thought disorders in diverse samples. It has been argued that the p factor may reflect dysfunctional thinking present in serious mental illness. In support of this, we previously used a theory-free, data-driven multimodal neuroimaging approach to find that higher p factor scores are associated with structural alterations within a cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit (CTCC) and visual association cortex, both of which are important for monitoring and coordinating information processing in the service of executive control. Here we attempt to replicate these associations by conducting region-of-interest analyses of CTCC and visual association cortex using data from 875 members of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, a five-decade study of a population-representative birth cohort now 45 years old. We further sought to replicate a more recent report that p factor scores can be predicted by patterns of distributed cerebellar morphology as estimated through independent component analysis. We successfully replicated associations between higher p factor scores and both reduced grey matter volume of the visual association cortex and fractional anisotropy of pontine white matter pathways within the CTCC. In contrast, we failed to replicate prior associations between cerebellar structure and p factor scores. Collectively, our findings encourage further focus on the CTCC and visual association cortex as core neural substrates and potential biomarkers of general psychopathology.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

A Connectome Wide Functional Signature of Broad Risk for Mental Illness

BackgroundHigh rates of comorbidity, shared risk, and overlapping therapeutic mechanisms have led psychopathology research towards transdiagnostic dimensional investigations of clustered symptoms. One influential framework accounts for these transdiagnostic phenomena through a single general factor, sometimes referred to as the p factor, associated with risk for all common forms of mental illness.\n\nMethodsHere we build on past research identifying unique structural neural correlates of the p factor by conducting a data-driven analysis of connectome wide intrinsic functional connectivity (n = 605).\n\nResultsWe demonstrate that higher p factor scores and associated risk for common mental illness maps onto hyper-connectivity between visual association cortex and both frontoparietal and default mode networks.\n\nConclusionsThese results provide initial evidence that the transdiagnostic risk for common forms of mental illness is associated with patterns of inefficient connectome wide intrinsic connectivity between visual association cortex and networks supporting executive control and self-referential processes, networks which are often impaired across categorical disorders.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Paradoxical Associations Between Higher Familial Warmth, Lower Stress, And Increased Amygdala Reactivity To Interpersonal Threat

Studies of early life extremes such as trauma, abuse, and neglect highlight the critical importance of quality caregiving in the development of brain circuits supporting emotional behavior and mental health. The impact of normative variability in caregiving on such biobehavioral processes, however, is poorly understood. Here, we provide initial evidence that even subtle variability in normative caregiving shapes threat-related brain function and, potentially, associated psychopathology in adolescence. Specifically, we report that greater familial affective responsiveness is associated with heightened amygdala reactivity to interpersonal threat, particularly in adolescents having experienced relatively low recent stress. These findings extend the literature on the effects of caregiving extremes on brain function to subtle, normative variability, but suggest that presumably protective factors may be associated with increased risk-related amygdala reactivity. We consider these paradoxical associations with regard to studies of basic associative threat learning and further consider their relevance for understanding potential effects of caregiving on psychological development.

neuroscience↗