Effects of anorexia nervosa on structural morphometry of the brain in adolescents and adults after weight recovery: A systematic review.

Purpose: To systematically review the evidence for 1) the effect of acute anorexia nervosa and weight recovery on aspects of structural morphometry of the brain, and 2) how these effects may differ between adolescents and adults.

Method: We used the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews. We searched online databases (Web of Knowledge, PubMed, and PsychINFO) and identified relevant studies.

Neonatal Brain Volumes and Early Parenting Behavior as Mediators in Associations Between Prenatal Social Disadvantage and Socioemotional Problems in Toddlers.

Background: Social disadvantage has been associated with early socioemotional difficulties. In this study, we examined mechanisms that relate prenatal social disadvantage (PSD) to the development of early socioemotional problems by testing whether these associations were mediated by 1) neonatal brain volumes (BVs) and/or 2) early parenting behaviors.

Methods: Women were recruited early in their pregnancies and followed prospectively.

Cannabis Use and Trajectories of Depression and Stress Across the Prenatal Period.

Importance: Cannabis use among pregnant individuals has increased. Depression and stress are frequently reported motives for cannabis use that may prolong using cannabis during pregnancy.

Objective: To examine associations between changes in depression, stress, and self-reported prenatal cannabis use (PCU), to examine motives for PCU, and to examine whether trajectories of depression and stress vary across individuals who report using cannabis to cope with mental health symptoms and/or stress, those who use cannabis for other reasons, and those who do not report PCU.

Associations between Parenting and Cognitive and Language Abilities at 2 Years of Age Depend on Prenatal Exposure to Disadvantage.

Objective: To investigate whether parenting or neonatal brain volumes mediate associations between prenatal social disadvantage (PSD) and cognitive/language abilities and whether these mechanisms vary by level of disadvantage.

Study Design: Pregnant women were recruited prospectively from obstetric clinics in St Louis, Missouri. PSD encompassed access to social (eg, education) and material (eg, income to needs, health insurance, area deprivation, and nutrition) resources during pregnancy.

Characteristics of women concordant and discordant for urine drug screens for cannabis exposure and self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy.

Background: Increasing cannabis use among pregnant people and equivocal evidence linking prenatal cannabis exposure to adverse outcomes in offspring highlights the need to understand its potential impact on pregnancy and child outcomes. Assessing cannabis use during pregnancy remains a major challenge with potential influences of stigma on self-report as well as detection limitations of easily collected biological matrices.

Objective: This descriptive study examined the concordance between self-reported (SR) cannabis use and urine drug screen (UDS) detection of cannabis exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy and characterized concordant and discordant groups for sociodemographic factors, modes of use, secondhand exposure to cannabis and tobacco, and alcohol use and cotinine positivity.

Neighborhood Crime and Externalizing Behavior in Toddlers: A Longitudinal Study With Neonatal fMRI and Parenting.

Objective: Prenatal exposure to neighborhood crime has been associated with weaker neonatal frontolimbic connectivity; however, associations with early childhood behavior remain unclear. We hypothesized that living in a high-crime neighborhood would be related to higher externalizing symptoms at age 1 and 2 years, over and above other adversities, and that neonatal frontolimbic connectivity and observed parenting behaviors at 1 year would mediate this relationship.

Method: Participants included 399 pregnant women, recruited as part of the Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders (eLABE) study.

Recent Advances in the Neuropsychology of Pedophilia.

A considerable amount of research has investigated the relationship between potential neuropsychological dysfunction, pedophilia, and sexual offending against children. Until recently, these studies focused primarily on the relationship between executive functions and sexual offending against children, collapsing across underlying sexual preferences, like pedophilia. Prior research suggests neuropsychological dysfunction in individuals who have committed child sexual abuse.