Clinical and subthreshold depression in an epidemiologic sample of adolescents.

Objective: Understanding the clinical continuum of depression (encompassing Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Subthreshold Depression (SD)) is fundamental to developing detection and prevention, especially among adolescents where onset is common. Using an epidemiologic adolescent sample, this study examined the prevalence of MDD and SD, and compared psychosocial outcomes with healthy controls (HCs).

Method: A total of 2295 adolescents aged 12-17 were randomly selected from schools across Hong Kong.

Population-Wide Depression Incidence Forecasting Comparing Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and Vector Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average to Temporal Fusion Transformers: Longitudinal Observational Study.

Background: Accurate prediction of population-wide depression incidence is vital for effective public mental health management. However, this incidence is often influenced by socioeconomic factors, such as abrupt events or changes, including pandemics, economic crises, and social unrest, creating complex structural break scenarios in the time-series data. These structural breaks can affect the performance of forecasting methods in various ways.

Twelve-month prevalence of DSM-5 mental disorders and the psychosocial correlates- a child and adolescent psychiatric epidemiologic survey in Hong Kong SAR.

Background: Childhood and adolescence, as critically important developmental stages, set the premise for the lifelong trajectory of health and well-being. Epidemiologic evidence abounds in purporting that half of all lifetime mental disorders begin in adolescence. Epidemiologic data based on structured clinical diagnostic assessments are disproportionately scarce in Asian countries that host fast-growing youth population along a wide socioeconomic spectrum in the course of globalisation.

Predictive values of pre-treatment brain age models to rTMS effects in neurocognitive disorder with depression: Secondary analysis of a randomised sham-controlled clinical trial.

Introduction: One major challenge in developing personalised repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is that the treatment responses exhibited high inter-individual variations. Brain morphometry might contribute to these variations. This study sought to determine whether individual's brain morphometry could predict the rTMS responders and remitters.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on depression incidence and healthcare service use among patients with depression: an interrupted time-series analysis from a 9-year population-based study.

Background: Most studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on depression burden focused on the earlier pandemic phase specific to lockdowns, but the longer-term impact of the pandemic is less well-studied. In this population-based cohort study, we examined the short-term and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on depression incidence and healthcare service use among patients with depression.

Methods: Using the territory-wide electronic medical records in Hong Kong, we identified all patients aged ≥ 10 years with new diagnoses of depression from 2014 to 2022.

Projecting the 10-year costs of care and mortality burden of depression until 2032: a Markov modelling study developed from real-world data.

Background: Based on real-world data, we developed a 10-year prediction model to estimate the burden among patients with depression from the public healthcare system payer's perspective to inform early resource planning in Hong Kong.

Methods: We developed a Markov cohort model with yearly cycles specifically capturing the pathway of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and comorbidity development along the disease course. Projected from 2023 to 2032, primary outcomes included costs of all-cause and psychiatric care, and secondary outcomes were all-cause deaths, years of life lived, and quality-adjusted life-years.

Association between cumulative exposure periods of flupentixol or any antipsychotics and risk of lung cancer.

Background: Preclinical evidence suggests that certain antipsychotic medications may inhibit the development of lung cancer. This study aims to investigate the association between incident lung cancer and different cumulative exposure periods of flupentixol or any antipsychotics.

Methods: Using electronic health records from the Hospital Authority in Hong Kong, this nested case-control study included case participants aged 18 years or older with newly diagnosed lung cancer after initiating antipsychotics between January 1, 2003, and August 31, 2022.

Moment-to-moment affective dynamics in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Background: Affective disturbances in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may represent a transdiagnostic etiological process as well as a target of intervention. Hypotheses on similarities and differences in various parameters of affective dynamics (intensity, successive/acute changes, variability, and reactivity to stress) between the two disorders were tested.

Methods: Experience sampling method was used to assess dynamics of positive and negative affect, 10 times a day over 6 consecutive days.

Specificity of associations between parental psychopathology and offspring brain structure.

Multiple forms of parental psychopathology have been associated with differences in subcortical brain volume. However, few studies have considered the role of comorbidity. Here, we examine if alterations in child subcortical brain structure are specific to parental depression, anxiety, mania, or alcohol/substance use parental psychopathology, common across these disorders, or altered by a history of multiple disorders.

Breast cancer risks following antipsychotic use in women with bipolar disorder versus schizophrenia: A territory-wide nested case-control study spanning two decades.

Accrued epidemiologic data largely support an association of antipsychotic use with breast cancer in women with schizophrenia. No studies have specifically investigated such risks in women with bipolar disorder. This study aims to examine the association between antipsychotics and breast cancer in women with bipolar disorder and compare it against schizophrenia.

Sleep and academic performance among students in Hong Kong: Curvilinear relationship suggesting an optimal amount of sleep.

Objectives: This study aimed to elucidate the association between sleep and academic performance using standardized academic assessment in a large and representative sample of school children and adolescents in Hong Kong.

Methods: This school-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016. Students completed territory-wide standardized tests in Chinese, English, and Mathematics and a set of questionnaires covering sleep, academic anxiety and motivation.

Treatment-resistant depression and risk of autoimmune diseases: evidence from a population-based cohort and nested case-control study.

Recent literature indicates that patients with depression had increased immune activation. We hypothesised that treatment-resistant depression (TRD), an indicator of non-responsive depression with long-term dysregulated inflammation, could be an independent risk factor for subsequent autoimmune diseases. We performed a cohort study and a nested case-control study to examine the association between TRD and risk of autoimmune diseases, and to explore potential sex-specific difference.

Decoding the radiomic features of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in individuals with accelerated cortical changes: implications for personalized transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Purpose: Image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an emerging research field in neuroscience and rehabilitation medicine. Cortical morphometry, as a radiomic phenotype of aging, plays a vital role in developing personalized TMS model, yet few studies are afoot to examine the aging effects on region-specific morphometry and use it in the estimation of TMS-induced electric fields. Our study was aimed to investigate the radiomic features of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and quantify the TMS-induced electric fields during aging.

Depression duration and risk of incident cardiovascular disease: A population-based six-year cohort study.

Background: Depression symptoms are significantly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, understanding of the magnitude of the association between depression duration and risk of CVD is limited. Therefore, we aimed to assess whether a longer duration of exposure to depression is associated with a higher risk of new-onset CVD.

Antidepressant efficacy of low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in antidepressant-nonresponding bipolar depression: a single-blind randomized sham-controlled trial.

Background: To examine the antidepressant efficacy and response predictors of R-DLPFC-LF rTMS for antidepressant-nonresponding BD.

Methods: We conducted a single-blind randomized sham-controlled trial for 54 (28 sham, 26 active) patients with antidepressant-nonresponding BD (baseline MADRS ≥ 20). Patients received 15 daily sessions of active or sham neuronavigated rTMS (Figure-of-8 coil, five 1 Hz 60 s 110% RMT trains).

Knowledge of mental health symptoms and help seeking attitude in a population-based sample in Hong Kong.

Background: Mental health symptoms can be subtle, resulting in delaying treatment. A prompt identification of mental signs and symptoms is important for preventing mental disorders in the public. This study examined whether local public have adequate knowledge to identify mental health symptoms and the need to get timely professional help.

History for some or lesson for all? A systematic review and meta-analysis on the immediate and long-term mental health impact of the 2002-2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak.

Background: The aims of this systematic review and meta-analysis are to examine the prevalence of adverse mental health outcomes, both short-term and long-term, among SARS patients, healthcare workers and the general public of SARS-affected regions, and to examine the protective and risk factors associated with these mental health outcomes.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search of the literature using databases such as Medline, Pubmed, Embase, PsycInfo, Web of Science Core Collection, CNKI, the National Central Library Online Catalog and dissertation databases to identify studies in the English or Chinese language published between January 2003 to May 2020 which reported psychological distress and mental health morbidities among SARS patients, healthcare workers, and the general public in regions with major SARS outbreaks.

Results: The literature search yielded 6984 titles.

Dynamic changes of region-specific cortical features and scalp-to-cortex distance: implications for transcranial current stimulation modeling.

Background: Transcranial current stimulation in rehabilitation is a fast-growing field featured with computational and biophysical modeling. Cortical features and scalp-to-cortex distance (SCD) are key variables for determining the strength and distribution of the electric field, yet longitudinal studies able to capture these dynamic changes are missing. We sought to investigate and quantify the ageing effect on the morphometry and SCD of left primary motor cortex (M1) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in normal ageing adults and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) converters.

Functional connectivity of the frontotemporal network in preattentive detection of abstract changes: Perturbs and observes with transcranial magnetic stimulation and event-related optical signal.

Current theories of automatic or preattentive change detection suggest a regularity or prediction violation mechanism involving functional connectivity between the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and the superior temporal cortex (STC). By disrupting the IFC function with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and recording the later STC mismatch response with event-related optical signal (EROS), previous study demonstrated a causal IFC-to-STC functional connection in detecting a pitch or physical change. However, physical change detection can be achieved by memory comparison of the physical features and may not necessarily involve regularity/rule extraction and prediction.

Randomized controlled trial of TDCS on cognition in 201 seniors with mild neurocognitive disorder.

Objective: To examine the efficacy and safety of combined transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and working memory training (WMT) in enhancing the cognitive functions for individuals with mild neurocognitive disorder due to AD (NCD-AD).

Methods: In this double-blind, sham-controlled randomized clinical trial (RCT), 201 patients with NCD-AD were randomly assigned for a 4-week intervention of either a combination of tDCS and WMT, sham tDCS and WMT, or tDCS and control cognitive training (CCT). Global cognition and domain-specific cognitive function were assessed before and after the intervention with Alzheimer's disease assessment scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog), category verbal fluency test, logical memory, digit, and visual span tests.

10Kin1day: A Bottom-Up Neuroimaging Initiative.

We organized 10Kin1day, a pop-up scientific event with the goal to bring together neuroimaging groups from around the world to jointly analyze 10,000+ existing MRI connectivity datasets during a 3-day workshop. In this report, we describe the motivation and principles of 10Kin1day, together with a public release of 8,000+ MRI connectome maps of the human brain.