Deakin University

About: Deakin University is a education organization based out in Burwood, Victoria, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 12118 authors who have published 46470 publications receiving 1188841 citations. The organization is also known as: Deakin.

Brain development during adolescence: A mixed-longitudinal investigation of cortical thickness, surface area, and volume

Abstract: What we know about cortical development during adolescence largely stems from analyses of cross-sectional or cohort-sequential samples, with few studies investigating brain development using a longitudinal design. Further, cortical volume is a product of two evolutionarily and genetically distinct features of the cortex - thickness and surface area, and few studies have investigated development of these three characteristics within the same sample. The current study examined maturation of cortical thickness, surface area and volume during adolescence, as well as sex differences in development, using a mixed longitudinal design. 192 MRI scans were obtained from 90 healthy (i.e., free from lifetime psychopathology) adolescents (11-20 years) at three time points (with different MRI scanners used at time 1 compared to 2 and 3). Developmental trajectories were estimated using linear mixed models. Non-linear increases were present across most of the cortex for surface area. In comparison, thickness and volume were both characterised by a combination of non-linear decreasing and increasing trajectories. While sex differences in volume and surface area were observed across time, no differences in thickness were identified. Furthermore, few regions exhibited sex differences in the cortical development. Our findings clearly illustrate that volume is a product of surface area and thickness, with each exhibiting differential patterns of development during adolescence, particularly in regions known to contribute to the development of social-cognition and behavioral regulation. These findings suggest that thickness and surface area may be driven by different underlying mechanisms, with each measure potentially providing independent information about brain development. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2027-2038, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Nutritional psychiatry: the present state of the evidence.

Abstract: Mental illness, including depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, accounts for a significant proportion of global disability and poses a substantial social, economic and heath burden Treatment is presently dominated by pharmacotherapy, such as antidepressants, and psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy; however, such treatments avert less than half of the disease burden, suggesting that additional strategies are needed to prevent and treat mental disorders There are now consistent mechanistic, observational and interventional data to suggest diet quality may be a modifiable risk factor for mental illness This review provides an overview of the nutritional psychiatry field It includes a discussion of the neurobiological mechanisms likely modulated by diet, the use of dietary and nutraceutical interventions in mental disorders, and recommendations for further research Potential biological pathways related to mental disorders include inflammation, oxidative stress, the gut microbiome, epigenetic modifications and neuroplasticity Consistent epidemiological evidence, particularly for depression, suggests an association between measures of diet quality and mental health, across multiple populations and age groups; these do not appear to be explained by other demographic, lifestyle factors or reverse causality Our recently published intervention trial provides preliminary clinical evidence that dietary interventions in clinically diagnosed populations are feasible and can provide significant clinical benefit Furthermore, nutraceuticals including n-3 fatty acids, folate, S-adenosylmethionine, N-acetyl cysteine and probiotics, among others, are promising avenues for future research Continued research is now required to investigate the efficacy of intervention studies in large cohorts and within clinically relevant populations, particularly in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar and anxiety disorders

Procedural justice and compliance behaviour: the mediating role of emotions

Abstract: Procedural justice researchers have consistently found that if authorities treat people with trust, fairness, respect and neutrality, people will not only be more willing to cooperate with authorities, but they will also be more likely to comply with authority decisions and rules. Newresearchin this area has gone on to explore the role that emotions play in response to procedural justice and injustice. What this new research has neglected to do, however, is examine whether emotions mediate the effect of procedural justice on subsequent compliance behaviour in real life settings. Using longitudinal surveydatacollectedintwo real-lifecontexts(Study 1:ataxationdispute(N ¼652),andStudy2:workplaces (N ¼2366)), the present study will show that perceptions of procedural justice influence the emotions experienced by people, but more importantly these emotional reactions (i.e. anger and happiness) mediate the effect of justice on subsequent compliance behaviour. In other words, it is these positive and negative emotional reactions to perceived justice or injustice that go on to predict who will and will not comply with authority decisions and rules. Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.