U.S. mothers' appraisals of the race-related events of 2020: Implications for the course of maternal posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.

For parents of color, publicized racial violence can heighten concerns about their children's safety. The goal of this study was to test whether this form of race-related stress exacerbates maternal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms over a 4-month period in families of color. Participants included 262 U.S. mothers with a lifetime mental health diagnosis (67.6% non-Hispanic White, 15.6% African-American/Black, 16.8% other family of color). Mothers completed online surveys and open-ended questions, including appraisals of the meaning of the 2020 race-related events (i.e., George Floyd's death, subsequent protests) in relation to their children's future. Open-ended responses were quantified using LIWC15 text analysis for emotion word frequency and thematic coding for perceived implications. In ANCOVA, there were significant racial group differences in appraisals, ds = 0.09-0.57. The responses from mothers of Black children included fewer positive and more negative emotion words than mothers of White children; they also included more perceived negative implications than all other mothers but did not vary on perceived positive implications. In regression analyses, there were significant moderating effects of race/ethnicity in the association between appraisals and PTSD symptom course such that negative appraisals predicted a subsequent increase in PTSD symptoms only for mothers of Black children, ßs = .26-.37. Variations in event appraisals were unrelated to PTSD symptom course for other mothers. These findings provide longitudinal support for the link between vicarious racism exposure and PTSD symptoms and highlight one potential form of racism-related stress for parents of Black children.

Neuropsychological and Neuroanatomical Features of Patients with Behavioral/Dysexecutive Variant Alzheimer's Disease (AD): A Comparison to Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia and Amnestic AD Groups.

BACKGROUND: An understudied variant of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the behavioral/dysexecutive variant of AD (bvAD), is associated with progressive personality, behavior, and/or executive dysfunction and frontal atrophy. OBJECTIVE: This study characterizes the neuropsychological and neuroanatomical features associated with bvAD by comparing it to behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), amnestic AD (aAD), and subjects with normal cognition. METHODS: Subjects included 16 bvAD, 67 bvFTD, 18 aAD patients, and 26 healthy controls. Neuropsychological assessment and MRI data were compared between these groups. RESULTS: Compared to bvFTD, bvAD showed more significant visuospatial impairments (Rey Figure copy and recall), more irritability (Neuropsychological Inventory), and equivalent verbal memory (Philadelphia Verbal Learning Test). Compared to aAD, bvAD indicated more executive dysfunction (F-letter fluency) and better visuospatial performance. Neuroimaging analysis found that bvAD showed cortical thinning relative to bvFTD posteriorly in left temporal-occipital regions; bvFTD had cortical thinning relative to bvAD in left inferior frontal cortex. bvAD had cortical thinning relative to aAD in prefrontal and anterior temporal regions. All patient groups had lower volumes than controls in both anterior and posterior hippocampus. However, bvAD patients had higher average volume than aAD patients in posterior hippocampus and higher volume than bvFTD patients in anterior hippocampus after adjustment for age and intracranial volume. CONCLUSION: Findings demonstrated that underlying pathology mediates disease presentation in bvAD and bvFTD.

Body surveillance as a prospective risk factor for depressive symptoms in low-income adolescent girls from the United States.

Adolescent girls who engage in frequent self-objectification often report a greater number of depressive symptoms. Although concurrent associations between self-objectification and depression are well-documented, it is less clear if objectification contributes to the course of symptoms. The current study examined: (a) whether body surveillance is prospectively related to depressive symptoms over a 1-month period in a sample of 150 low-income adolescent girls in the United States, and; (b) whether receiving certain types of weight-relevant information (i.e., learning one's weight is much higher than estimated) moderates this association. Heightened body surveillance at baseline predicted greater symptom severity one month later, but the strength of this relationship depended on what type of weight information girls received. Among girls high in body surveillance, those who found out their actual weight was much higher than they estimated subsequently reported more severe depressive symptoms; those who learned their actual weight was consistent or lower than they estimated reported fewer depressive symptoms. For girls low in body surveillance, weight-relevant information was not significantly related to the subsequent severity of depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the potential utility of assessing and addressing heightened body surveillance in depression interventions for adolescent girls.

Persistent and Progressive Outer Retina Thinning in Frontotemporal Degeneration.

OBJECTIVE: While Alzheimer's disease is associated with inner retina thinning measured by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT), our previous cross-sectional study suggested outer retina thinning in frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) patients compared to controls without neurodegenerative disease; we sought to evaluate longitudinal changes of this potential biomarker. METHODS: SD-OCT retinal layer thicknesses were measured at baseline and after 1-2 years. Clinical criteria, genetic analysis, and a cerebrospinal fluid biomarker (total tau: ß-amyloid) to exclude likely underlying Alzheimer's disease pathology were used to define a subgroup of predicted molecular pathology (i.e., tauopathy). Retinal layer thicknesses and rates of change in all FTD patients (n = 16 patients, 30 eyes) and the tauopathy subgroup (n = 9 patients,16 eyes) were compared to controls (n = 30 controls, 47 eyes) using a generalized linear model accounting for inter-eye correlation and adjusting for age, sex, and race. Correlations between retinal layer thicknesses and Mini-Mental State Examinations (MMSE) were assessed. RESULTS: Compared to controls, returning FTD patients (143 vs. 130 µm, p = 0.005) and the tauopathy subgroup (143 vs. 128 µm, p = 0.03) had thinner outer retinas but similar inner layer thicknesses. Compared to controls, the outer retina thinning rate was not significant for all FTD patients (p = 0.34), but was significant for the tauopathy subgroup (-3.9 vs. 0.4 µm/year, p = 0.03). Outer retina thickness change correlated with MMSE change in FTD patients (Spearman rho = 0.60, p = 0.02) and the tauopathy subgroup (rho = 0.73, p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: Our finding of FTD outer retina thinning persists and longitudinally correlates with disease progression. These findings were especially seen in probable tauopathy patients, which showed progressive outer retina thinning.

Longitudinal decline in speech production in Parkinson's disease spectrum disorders.

We examined narrative speech production longitudinally in non-demented (n=15) and mildly demented (n=8) patients with Parkinson's disease spectrum disorder (PDSD), and we related increasing impairment to structural brain changes in specific language and motor regions. Patients provided semi-structured speech samples, describing a standardized picture at two time points (mean±SD interval=38±24months). The recorded speech samples were analyzed for fluency, grammar, and informativeness. PDSD patients with dementia exhibited significant decline in their speech, unrelated to changes in overall cognitive or motor functioning. Regression analysis in a subset of patients with MRI scans (n=11) revealed that impaired language performance at Time 2 was associated with reduced gray matter (GM) volume at Time 1 in regions of interest important for language functioning but not with reduced GM volume in motor brain areas. These results dissociate language and motor systems and highlight the importance of non-motor brain regions for declining language in PDSD.