Objectives: To investigate the prevalence and risk factors for poor mental health of Chinese university students during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Method: Chinese nationwide on-line cross-sectional survey on university students, collected between February 12 th and 17 th , 2020. Primary outcome was prevalence of clinically-relevant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Secondary outcomes on poor mental health included prevalence of clinically-relevant anxiety and depressive symptoms, while posttraumatic growth was considered as indicator of effective coping reaction. Results: Of 2,500 invited Chinese university students, 2,038 completed the survey. Prevalence of clinically-relevant PTSD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, and post traumatic growth (PTG) was 30.8, 15.5, 23.3, and 66.9% respectively. Older age, knowing people who had been isolated, more ACEs, higher level of anxious attachment, and lower level of resilience all predicted primary outcome (all p < 0.01). Conclusions: A significant proportion of young adults exhibit clinically relevant posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxious or depressive symptoms, but a larger portion of individuals showed to effectively cope with COVID-19 pandemic. Interventions promoting resilience should be provided, even remotely, to those subjects with specific risk factors to develop poor mental health during COVID-19 or other pandemics with social isolation.
Background Animal models of addiction suggest that the transition from incentive-driven to habitual and ultimately compulsive drug use is mediated by a shift from ventral to dorsal striatal cue-control over drug seeking. Previous studies in human cannabis users reported elevated trait impulsivity and cue-reactivity in striatal circuits, however, these studies were not able to separate addiction-related from exposure-related adaptations.Methods To differentiate the adaptive changes, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined behavioral and neural cue-reactivity in dependent (n = 18) and nondependent (n = 20) heavy cannabis users and a non-using reference group (n = 44).
ResultsIrrespective of dependence status, cannabis users demonstrated elevated trait impulsivity as well as increased ventral striatal reactivity and striato-frontal coupling in response to drug cues. Dependent users selectively exhibited dorsal-striatal reactivity and decreased striato-limbic coupling during cue-exposure. An exploratory analysis revealed that higher ventral caudate cue-reactivity was associated with stronger cue-induced arousal and craving in dependent users, whereas this pattern was reversed in non-dependent users.Conclusions Together the present findings suggest that an incentive sensitization of the ventral striatal reward system may promote excessive drug use in humans, whereas adaptations in dorsal striatal systems engaged in habit formation may promote the transition to addictive use.
Compulsivity and loss of behavioral control represent core symptoms in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), substance use disorder (SUD), and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Despite elaborated animal models suggesting that compulsivity is mediated by cortico‐striatal circuits and a growing number of neuroimaging case–control studies, common neurofunctional alterations in these disorders have not been systematically examined. The present activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta‐analysis capitalized on previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies to determine shared neurofunctional alterations among the three disorders. Task‐based fMRI studies of individuals with SUD, OCD, or IGD were obtained. ALE was performed within each disorder. Next, contrast and conjunction meta‐analyses were performed to determine differential and common alterations. Task‐paradigm classes were group according to Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) domains to determine contributions of underlying behavioral domains. One hundred forty‐four articles were included representing data from n = 6897 individuals (SUD = 2418, controls = 2332; IGD = 361, controls = 360; OCD = 715, controls = 711) from case–control studies. Conjunction meta‐analyses revealed shared alterations in the anterior insular cortex between OCD and SUDs. SUD exhibited additionally pronounced dorsal‐striatal alterations compared with both, OCD and IGD. IGD shared frontal, particularly cingulate alterations with all SUDs, while IGD demonstrated pronounced temporal alterations compared with both, SUD and OCD. No robust overlap between IGD and OCD was observed. Across the disorders, neurofunctional alterations were mainly contributed by cognitive systems and positive valence RDoC domains. The present findings indicate that neurofunctional dysregulations in prefrontal regions engaged in regulatory‐control represent shared neurofunctional alterations across substance and behavioral addictions, while shared neurofunctional dysregulations in the anterior insula may mediate compulsivity in substance addiction and OCD.
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