Faculty Bibliography

The senses of taste and smell developed early in evolution and are of high ecological and clinical relevance in humans. Chemosensory systems function, in large part, as hazard avoidance systems, thereby ensuring survival. Moreover, they play a critical role in nutrition and in determining the flavor of foods and beverages. Their dysfunction has been shown to be a key element of early stages of a number of diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Advanced neuroimaging methods provide a unique means for understanding, in vivo, neural and psychological processing of smell, taste, and flavor, and how diseases can impact such processing. This chapter provides, from a neuroimaging perspective, a comprehensive overview of the anatomy and physiology involved in the odor and taste processing in the central nervous system. Some methodological challenges associated with chemosensory neuroimaging research are discussed. Multisensory integration, the mechanisms that enable holistic sensory experiences, is emphasized.

Rates of treatment utilization decline as adolescents make the transition to adulthood even though young adults are particularly vulnerable to the negative outcomes of untreated mental illness. Although a variety of factors have been explored to explain decreased treatment utilization in this age group, previous research has almost exclusively employed cross-sectional methods rather than following a group of youth as they enter adulthood. The current study aims to address this methodological limitation by assessing treatment utilization in emerging adults who began participating in a longitudinal study during childhood. One hundred and thirty seven youth who turned 18 during the 96-month follow-up period were included in the current analyses. Demographic and socioeconomic variables such as sex, race, and insurance status and clinical variables such as psychiatric diagnoses and perceptions of treatment effectiveness were investigated as factors potentially associated with outpatient treatment use before and after age 18. Prior to age 18, youth reported using outpatient services at 75% of their visits, but after age 18, outpatient treatment utilization dropped to around 50%. White race, increased parental stress, and increased parental perception of treatment usefulness were associated with greater treatment use prior to age 18, whereas only increased youth perception of symptom-related dysfunction were associated with increased treatment use after age 18. Findings point to the importance of including youth preferences and perceptions of dysfunction in treatment decisions across adolescence in order to optimize treatment use following the transition to adulthood.

Detecting pathogen threats and avoiding disease is fundamental to human survival. The behavioral immune system (BIS) framework outlines a set of psychological functions that may have evolved for this purpose. Disgust is a core emotion that plays a pivotal role in the BIS, as it activates the behavioral avoidance motives that prevent people from being in contact with pathogens. To date, there has been little agreement on how disgust sensitivity might underlie moral judgments. Here, we investigated moral violations of "purity" (assumed to elicit disgust) and violations of "harm" (assumed to elicit anger). We hypothesized that individual differences in BIS-related traits would be associated with greater disgust (vs. anger) reactivity to, and greater condemnation of Purity (vs. Harm) violations. The study was pre-registered (https://osf.io/57nm8/). Participants (N = 632) rated scenarios concerning moral wrongness or inappropriateness and regarding disgust and anger. To measure individual differences in the activation of the BIS, we used our recently developed Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS), a BIS-related trait measure that assesses individual differences in feeling disgusted by body odors. In line with our predictions, we found that scores on the BODS relate more strongly to affective reactions to Purity, as compared to Harm, violations. In addition, BODS relates more strongly to Moral condemnation than to perceived Inappropriateness of an action, and to the condemnation of Purity violations as compared to Harm violations. These results suggest that the BIS is involved in moral judgment, although to some extent this role seems to be specific for violations of "moral purity," a response that might be rooted in disease avoidance. Data and scripts to analyze the data are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository: https://osf.io/tk4x5/. Planned analyses are available at https://osf.io/x6g3u/.

The FMR1 premutation (PM) is relatively common in the general population. Evidence suggests that PM carriers may exhibit subtle differences in specific cognitive and language abilities. This study examined potential mechanisms underlying such differences through the study of gaze and language coordination during a language processing task (rapid automatized naming; RAN) among female carriers of the FMR1 PM. RAN taps a complex set of underlying neuropsychological mechanisms, with breakdowns implicating processing disruptions in fundamental skills that support higher order language and executive functions, making RAN (and analysis of gaze/language coordination during RAN) a potentially powerful paradigm for revealing the phenotypic expression of the FMR1 PM. Forty-eight PM carriers and 56 controls completed RAN on an eye tracker, where they serially named arrays of numbers, letters, colors, and objects. Findings revealed a pattern of inefficient language processing in the PM group, including a greater number of eye fixations (namely, visual regressions) and reduced eye-voice span (i.e., the eyes' lead over the voice) relative to controls. Differences were driven by performance in the latter half of the RAN arrays, when working memory and processing load are the greatest, implicating executive skills. RAN deficits were associated with broader social-communicative difficulties among PM carriers, and with FMR1-related molecular genetic variation (higher CGG repeat length, lower activation ratio, and increased levels of the fragile X mental retardation protein; FMRP). Findings contribute to an understanding of the neurocognitive profile of PM carriers and indicate specific gene-behavior associations that implicate the role of the FMR1 gene in language-related processes.

Learning, memory, and emotional regulation are all modulated by sleep. Sleep influences on neural circuit function and plasticity occur in all mammalian brain regions examined to date, including the noncanonical olfactory system, suggesting sleep disruption could have wide-ranging consequences on behavior and cognition. New evidence suggests that sleep disturbances during early development can have particularly insidious and long-lasting consequences. In particular, work from our lab and others suggests that early-life adverse events can disrupt sleep across the life span, thus contributing to a variety of negative cognitive and behavioral outcomes. These findings raise the possibility that interventions targeting sleep may have therapeutic value for children or adults exposed to early-life adverse events. Here, we describe sleep and sleep ontogeny and then describe the role of sleep in normal and pathological brain function. Finally, we explore how early-life adverse events and sleep disturbances may reciprocally interact to produce a range of psychopathological outcomes.
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The aim of this study was to examine associations between maternal mentalization, interactive behavior, and child symptoms in families in which mothers suffer from interpersonal violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD). Fifty-six mothers and children (aged 12-42 months) including mothers with a diagnosis of IPV-PTSD were studied. Mentalization was measured by the Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF) Scale. Interactive behavior during free-play was measured via the CARE-Index. Child symptoms were measured by the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA). Data analyses included non-parametric correlations and multiple linear regression. Results showed that lower IPV-PTSD and higher Maternal Reflective Functioning (MRF) were related to greater maternal sensitivity. Lower MRF and greater controlling behavior were related to child dysregulation. MRF was found to be lower in the subgroup of IPV-PTSD when the child's father was the perpetrator of IPV. Both MRF and interactive behavior are thus likely to be important targets for intervention during sensitive periods of early social-emotional development.

BACKGROUND:Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is a significant public health and social welfare problem in low-and middle income countries (LMICs). However, most ACEs research is based on developed countries, and little is known about mechanisms of early ACEs on adulthood health and offspring's wellbeing for populations in LMICs. This area is needed to guide social welfare policy and intervention service planning. This study addresses these research gaps by examining patterns of ACEs and understanding the role of ACEs on adulthood health (i.e., physical, mental health, experience of underage pregnancy) and offspring's mental health in Kenya. The study was guided by an Integrated Family Stress and Adverse Childhood Experiences Mediation Framework. METHODS:Three hundred ninety four mothers from two informal communities in Kariobangi and Kangemi in Nairobi were included in this study. The Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ), the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), Overall Health and Quality of Life items, and Child Behavior Checklist were used to study research questions. Data was gathered through a one-time interview with mothers. Structural Equational Modeling (SEM) was applied for mediational mechanism testing. RESULTS:Among 13 ACE areas, most mothers experienced multiple adversity during their childhood (Mean (SD) = 4.93 (2.52)), with household member treated violently (75%) as the most common ACE. SEM results showedthat all domains of ACEs were associated with some aspects of maternal health, and all three domains of maternal health (maternal mental health, physical health, and adolescent pregnancy) were significantly associated with development of offspring's mental health problems. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:ACEs are highly prevalent in Kenyan informal settlements. Consistent with cross cultural literature on family stress model, maternal ACEs are robust predictors for poor child mental health. Preventive interventions for child mental health need to address maternal adverse childhood traumatic experiences as well as their current health in order to effectively promote child mental health.