Jean Richard Séguin

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Full) at Université de Montréal

Objectives The objectives of this study are to describe cannabis use during pregnancy, identify associated factors, examine the associations between prenatal cannabis use and the cognitive, motor and language development of 2-year-old children, and determine whether these associations differ according to child sex. Methods Data from 1489 mother-in...

Background Gestational exposures to single toxic chemicals have been associated with cognitive deficits in children, but few studies have explored chemical mixtures. Objectives To evaluate the associations between gestational chemical biomarker mixtures and cognitive abilities in children from two prospective cohorts. Methods This study includes...

Objective: Rates of substance use disorders (SUDs) remain significantly above national targets for health promotion and disease prevention in Canada and the United States. This study investigated the 5-year SUD outcomes following a selective drug and alcohol prevention program targeting personality risk factors for adolescent substance misuse. Me...

Background Adolescent alcohol use is the norm, but only some develop a substance use disorder. The increased risk might reflect heightened mesocorticolimbic responses to reward‐related cues but results published to date have been inconsistent. Methods Young social drinkers (age 18.5 ± 0.6 y.o.) who have been followed since birth were recruited fro...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276532.].

Parenting programs have been shown to be effective in preventing and reducing externalising problems in young children. Despite their efficacy, the low rate of initial parental engagement in these programs is a major challenge for clinicians and researchers. Few studies have examined factors associated with rates of initial engagement in parenting...

Knowledge is lacking on whether adolescents’ motivations for social media use predict internalizing symptoms, and few studies have considered the moderating role of extraversion. In 2017 (T1) and 2018 (T2), 197 adolescents (49.70% girls, Mage = 13.15, SD = 0.36) from a large metropolitan area participated in this study. Adolescents reported on thei...

While its etiology is not fully elucidated, preterm birth represents a major public health concern as it is the leading cause of child mortality and morbidity. Stress is one of the most common perinatal conditions and may increase the risk of preterm birth. In this paper we aimed to investigate the association of maternal perceived stress and anxie...

EF skills play a central role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety, but it is unclear whether they act as moderators or mediators in the relation between early behavioral inhibition (BI) and later anxiety. The current study tested two models by examining whether two executive functions (EF) skills (cognitive flexibility and working memory) as...

Researchers have identified socioeconomic status (SES) as a risk factor for suboptimal parenting in guided-learning settings. Yet, the confounding role of co-occurring child risk factors in the SES-parenting linkage is understudied. In this prospective study, we examined how SES, child temperament, and child cognitive abilities of 197 mother-presch...

Objective: Emerging adulthood (18-25 years) is associated with peak prevalence of cannabis use. While population-based longitudinal studies have found little change in cannabis use among emerging adults during COVID-19, research examining changes among vulnerable subgroups is lacking. The present study examined the association between emotion dysr...

Introduction: This study examined (1) whether measures of paternal anxious and depressive symptoms collected prenatally and during a follow-up assessment when the child was in middle childhood, predict child neuroendocrine outcomes, and (2) whether neuroendocrine outcomes are intermediate factors between paternal mental health and child cognitive/b...

Introduction: Approximately 5.5% of pregnant women take antidepressants. Studies on prenatal exposure to antidepressants reported no association with child cognition, and inconsistent results with motor function and language development. A limitation has been the failure to adjust for prenatal maternal distress. Objectives: Assess the associations...

Introduction Paternal mental health has been associated with adverse consequences on offspring psychosocial development, and family environmental factors may partly explain those associations. To clarify this, we need comprehensive prospective studies, particularly in middle-childhood when the child enters school and is expected to make use of beha...

Although disturbing dreams are prevalent in youth and are associated with psychopathology, little is known about their developmental course and risk factors. We aimed to examine the association between early social environment and subsequent disturbing dream frequency across adolescence as moderated by early negative emotionality. Measures of child...

This study examined (1) longitudinal invariance of executive function (EF) factors across early childhood, (2) EF development, and (3) its association with later cognitive functions and academic performance. We measured cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control, and complex EF in 465 children (72% white) at 3.5, 5, 6, and 7 years. C...

Studies examining the associations between adolescent social media use and depression/anxiety symptoms show inconsistent results and do not elucidate the direction of associations. Differences in how studies operationalize social media use and consider potential moderating effects of sex and extraversion could contribute to inconsistencies. A disti...

La présence de comportements extériorisés chez les jeunes enfants peut représenter un défi pour les parents à plusieurs égards, notamment dans le maintien d’un soutien affectif de qualité. Les comportements extériorisés étant hétérogènes dans leurs manifestations, leur interférence avec la qualité du soutien affectif maternel en contexte d’apprenti...

Background: Exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been shown to be neurotoxic in experimental studies, but epidemiological evidence linking prenatal PFAS exposure to child neurodevelopment is equivocal and scarce. Objective: To quantify associations between prenatal exposure to legacy PFAS and children's intelligence (IQ) and executiv...

Objectives: Although the risk of suicide is high in first-episode psychosis (FEP), little is known about the course of suicidal ideation and its relation to suicide attempts. Therefore, we aimed to identify 5-year trajectories of suicidal ideation and associated factors in FEP and compare how suicide attempts were distributed across these identifie...

This study used symptom dimensions reflecting DSM-V internalizing, externalizing, eating disorders, and substance use (SU) and related problems to thoroughly investigate the structure of psychopathology in mid-adolescence (15 and 17 years, N = 1,515, 52% female). Compared to other hierarchical configurations (unidimensional, correlated factors, or...

Background: Research is yet to elucidate adolescent polysubstance use profiles among youth with early-onset cannabis use (CU; ≤15 years). The present study aimed to fill this gap in the literature and determine whether CU outcomes in early adulthood are best explained by early-onset CU per se, or by its resulting polysubstance use profiles. Methods...

The present study documented in two distinct population-based samples the contribution of preschool fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities to school achievement in primary school and examined the mediating role of crystallized abilities in this sequence of predictive associations. In both samples, participants were assessed on the same cognitiv...

Friends' alcohol and drug use is one of the best-known social predictors of substance use in adolescence and can be explained by two main mechanisms: socialization (being influenced by one's friends' substance use) and peer selection (choosing friends who have similar substance use habits). In this study, we first examined the bidirectional relatio...

Executive functions (EF) play an essential role in many spheres of child development. Therefore, it is crucial to get a better understanding of their etiology. Using a genetic design that involved 934 twins (400 monozygotic), this study examined the etiology of cognitive flexibility, a component of EF, at 5 years of age and its phenotypic and etiol...

Background Although the risk of suicide is high in first-episode psychosis (FEP), little is known about the course of suicidal ideation and its relation with suicide attempts. Aims To identify five-year trajectories of suicidal ideation and associated factors in FEP and compare how suicide attempts were distributed across these identified trajecto...

Introduction : Although the risk of suicide is high in first-episode psychosis (FEP), little is known about the course of suicidal ideation and its relation with suicide attempts. Therefore, we aimed to identify five-year trajectories of suicidal ideation and associated factors in FEP and compare how suicide attempts were distributed across these i...

This study investigated the transactional relations between vocabulary and disruptive behaviors (DB; physical aggression and opposition/rule breaking/theft and vandalism), during the transition to formal schooling, using a community sample of 572 children. Cross-lagged panel model analyses were used to examine bidirectional relationships, comparing...

Aims Internalizing symptoms are theorized to lead to substance use (SU) via a tendency to use substances to cope with or self-medicate negative feelings and emotions; however, empirically, this association is mixed, pointing to the existence of moderating factors. The present study aimed to examine how self-, teacher, and father-reported attention-...

This study aims to identify distinct trajectories of cannabis use during adolescence and examine whether Sociability (ability to relate to others) and Responsibility (ability to integrate a community setting) during childhood are associated with these trajectories, accounting for individual and familial confounders. Population-based cohort study (1...

Objective/background: Many studies have reported associations between disturbing dream occurrence and internalizing symptoms in adults, but the extent to which such associations also characterize adolescents remains unknown. The main goal of the present longitudinal study was to evaluate the strength and stability of the associations between distu...

Many studies show a general increase in stress hormones at the exposure to school entry, but inconsistencies among them due to small samples with varying methodologies and very few time-points, preclude robust conclusions. The current study aimed to describe the pattern of morning cortisol concentration in children across the transition from presch...

Objective: Prospective research is needed to better-understand changes in substance use from before to during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, among emerging adults (18–25 years), a high-risk group for substance use. Method:N = 1,096 (weighted sample N = 1,080; 54% female) participants enrolled in the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child...

Introduction: Peer victimisation is a prevalent occurrence in childhood and adolescence and can often have long-lasting consequences. Previous research using polygenic scores (PGSs) have revealed various genetic vulnerabilities as predictive of victimisation in childhood. However, findings were based on self-report and may therefore be influenced...

Past research has demonstrated associations between parental personality traits and children's behaviour. However, fathers have been largely excluded from this research, and mothers often rate both their own personality and their child's behaviour, contributing to shared method variance. This study contributes to the literature by examining associa...

Whereas accuracy is used as an indicator of cognitive flexibility in preschool‐age children, reaction time (RT), or a combination of accuracy and RT, provide better indices of performance as children transition to school. Theoretical models and cross‐sectional studies suggest that a speed‐accuracy tradeoff may be operating across this transition, b...

Commonly comorbid early onset psychiatric disorders might reflect the varying expression of overlapping risk factors. The mediating processes remain poorly understood, but three factors show some promise: adolescent externalizing traits, early life adversity, and midbrain dopamine autoreceptors. To investigate whether these features acquire greater...

Use of substances such as cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco, has been associated with increased risk of suicide attempt in several observational studies. However, establishing whether these associations are causal is challenging when using observational designs. To evaluate the potential causal contributions of cannabis use, alcohol use, and tobacco s...

Objective Self-reported maternal prenatal stress (MPS) has been associated with earlier febrile seizure (FS) age of onset in offspring. Studies are needed to understand how the biological systems associated with exposure to psychological MPS are linked to seizure disorders in children. The aim of this study was to investigate whether placental mark...

Many studies showed a global acute increase in stress hormones at kindergarten entry, but inconsistencies among them due to small samples with varying methodologies and very few measurement points, preclude robust conclusions. The current study aimed to describe the pattern of morning cortisol concentration in children during the transition from pr...

Background Reviews and meta-analyses suggest that substance use and suicidality (i.e., suicidal ideations and attempts) are associated in youth, but the direction of this association remains unclear. Theoretically, the secondary psychiatric disorder hypothesis (SPDH) posits that substance use leads to suicidality, while the secondary substance use...

Background Children who consistently withdraw from social situations face increased risk for later socioemotional difficulties. Twin studies indicate that genetic factors substantially account for the persistence of social withdrawal over time. However, the molecular genetic etiology of chronic courses of social wariness and preference for solitude...

Substance abuse is a significant public health concern that disproportionately burdens males and low-income communities. This study examined (1) longitudinal profiles of male adolescent poly-substance use and (2) their association with social and economic participation across early adulthood. Drawing on a cohort of males (n = 890) from low-income n...

The prevalence of mental health problems represents a significant burden on school and community health resources as early as preschool. Reducing this burden requires a better understanding of the developmental mechanisms linking children’s early vulnerabilities with mental health after the transition to formal schooling. The 3D-Transition study (2...

Cannabis use is linked to symptoms of depression and anxiety, particularly among sexual minorities. This study examines the relationships between cannabis, and depression and anxiety symptoms at 13, 15, and 17 years using cross-lagged models in a predominantly White (n = 1,430; 92%) subsample of 1,548 participants from the Quebec Longitudinal study...

Childhood adversity and anxiety have been associated with increased risk for internalizing disorders later in life and with a range of brain structural abnormalities. However, few studies have examined the link between harsh parenting practices and brain anatomy, outside of severe maltreatment or psychopathology. Moreover, to our knowledge, there h...

Disturbing dreams and recurrent dreams have both been linked to a wide range of psychological difficulties in children. There is growing evidence that the experience of frequent disturbing dreams is associated with suicidal ideation in adults, but studies in young adolescents have been limited and the results inconsistent. In addition, the possible...

Objective: Only a minority of drug and alcohol users develops a substance use disorder. Previous studies suggest that this differential vulnerability commonly reflects a developmental trajectory characterized by diverse externalizing behaviors. In this study, we examined the relation between child and adolescent externalizing behaviors and adolesc...

Background Few studies investigated the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and offspring suicide risk, none considering postnatal smoking exposure. We investigated associations between maternal smoking patterns during the pre- and post-natal periods and adolescent suicidal ideation and attempt. Methods We identified longitudinal...

BACKGROUND: The etiology of autism spectrum disorder is poorly understood. Few studies have investigated the link between endocrine-disrupting chemicals and autistic traits. We examined the relationship between gestational phthalates and autistic traits in 3-to 4-y-old Canadian children. We also investigated potential effect modification by sex and...

Background. Children who consistently withdraw from social situations face increased risk for later socioemotional difficulties. Twin studies indicate that genetic factors account for a substantial share in the persistence of social withdrawal over time. However, the molecular genetic etiology of chronic courses of social wariness and preference fo...

Background Prenatal exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) has been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children, but evidence remains mixed regarding sex differences in this association. Objective To examine the prospective association between prenatal PBDE exposure and cognitive ability in young children, as well a...

Although frequent disturbing dreams, including bad dreams and nightmares, have been repeatedly associated with poor psychological well-being in adults, considerably less information exists on their psychosocial correlates in children. Recent empirical and theoretical contributions suggest that the association between disturbing dream frequency and...

Background: Obtaining recent estimates of the prevalence of suicide-related outcomes across adolescence and its associated mental health problems (MHPs) is important for clinical practice. We estimated the prevalence of suicide-related outcomes at ages 13, 15, 17, and 20 years (2011-2018) in a contemporary population-based cohort and documented as...

The excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate has been implicated in experience-dependent neuroplasticity and drug-seeking behaviors. Type 5 metabotropic glutamate (mGlu5) receptors might be particularly important. They are critically involved in synaptic plasticity and their availability has been reported to be lower in people with alcohol, tobacco, a...

Recent studies have shown that the association between maternal depression and child outcome can be moderated by children's experience of childcare (e.g., daycare) during early childhood (0–5 years). We also know that maternal depression in the child's early years has long-term associations with child development. However, the moderating role of ch...

Background To clarify the direction of the association between frequency of cannabis use, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation from 15 to 20 years using cross-lagged analyses. Method We included 1606 adolescents from the province of Québec followed since 1997 with information on frequency of cannabis use (none/monthly/weekly), depression (def...

The neurobiological traits that confer risk for addictions remain poorly understood. However, dopaminergic function throughout the prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and upper brainstem has been implicated in behavioral features that influence addiction vulnerability, including poor impulse control and altered sensitivity to rewards and punishments...

There is a well‐established link between substance use and four personality traits of anxiety–sensitivity, hopelessness, impulsivity, and sensation‐seeking. However, construct‐level models of personality may conceal indicator‐level personality–outcome associations. The current study aims to investigate evolution of the network constellation of pers...

Background: The etiology of autism spectrum disorder is poorly understood. Few studies have investigated the link between endocrine-disrupting chemicals and autistic traits. We examined the relationship between gestational phthalates and autistic traits in 3- to 4-y-old Canadian children. We also investigated potential effect modification by sex a...

Background Maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) have been associated with poorer child cognitive development. Some studies have shown that childcare attendance moderates associations between MDS and child behavior problems, but we do not know if this is the case for children’s cognitive development. Furthermore, few studies have evaluated whether ass...

Background: Many pregnant women are consuming diets of poor overall quality. Although many studies have linked poor prenatal diet quality to an increased risk of specific diseases in offspring, it is not known if exposure to poor prenatal diet affects core neurophysiological regulatory systems in offspring known to lie upstream of multiple disease...

Although the development of psychopathy is not well understood, prior studies suggest that psychopathic traits begin to develop in childhood. Whereas research suggests consistency in the structure and correlates of psychopathic traits as assessed with clinical measures of psychopathic traits in adolescence and in adulthood, there is less agreement...

Among children exposed to elevated maternal depression symptoms (MDS), recent studies have demonstrated reduced internalizing and externalizing problems for those who have attended formal childcare (i.e., center-based, family-based childcare). However, these studies did not consider whether childcare attendance is associated with benefits for the c...

This study examined whether the interaction between parenting and inhibitory control predicts hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattention in 195 children. Observation data of positive parenting were collected at 4 years, and mother reports of coercive parenting at 5 years, inhibitory control at 6 years, and hyperactivity-impulsivity/inattention at 7...

The present study documented in two distinct population-based samples the contribution of preschool fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities to later school achievement in primary school and examined the mediating role of crystallized abilities in this sequence of predictive associations. In both samples, participants were assessed on the same fl...

Previous studies have reported altered fear circuitry function during fear conditioning in highly anxious individuals and in adults with a history of severe childhood adversity; less is known regarding younger populations and more common forms of adversity. We investigated fear circuitry functioning in healthy youths with histories of high (HH) or...

Anogenital distance (AGD) has been used as a marker of fetal androgen action to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals. A US study (TIDES) has reported that the association between some phthalates and reduced AGD in males was only apparent in sons of mothers reporting no stressful life events (SLEs) during pregnancy. The objective of the current s...

This study examined whether interactions of parental knowledge of adolescent's whereabouts with impulsivity and sensation seeking in the prediction of adolescent substance use supported the diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility model in 230 15-year old adolescents (53% girls). Interactions between impulsivity and parental knowledge suppor...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess, in a large sample of healthy young adults, sex differences in the binding potential of [¹¹C]ABP688, a positron emission tomography (PET) tracer selective for the metabotropic glutamate type 5 (mGlu5) receptor. Methods High resolution [¹¹C]ABP688 PET scans were acquired in 74 healthy volunteers (25 m...

Purpose To determine how the low-affinity (Z)-isomer of the radiotracer [¹¹C]ABP688 affects binding potential values in vivo in humans. Methods High-resolution [¹¹C]ABP688 PET scans were acquired on 74 healthy volunteers (25 male, 49 female, mean age 20 ± 3.0). The relative contents of (E)- and (Z)-isomers were determined prior to injection using...

While dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) may exert neuroprotective effects in the developing brain, prolonged or excessive elevations in cortisol may exert neurotoxic effects. The ratio between DHEA and cortisol (DC ratio) has been linked to internalizing and externalizing disorders as well as cognitive performance, supporting the clinical relevance of...

Background and aims: The experience of alcohol use among adolescents is complex, with international differences in age of purchase and individual differences in consumption and consequences. This latter underlines the importance of prediction modeling of adolescent alcohol use. The current study (a) compared the performance of seven machine-learni...

Background: Lead exposure predicts altered neurodevelopment and lower intelligence quotient (IQ) in children, but few studies have examined this association in children who have relatively low blood lead concentrations. Objectives: To test the associations between blood lead concentrations and cognitive function in Canadian preschoolers, with a pos...

Evolutionary models of psychopathology can shed light on gene-environment interactions. Differential susceptibility to the environment means that heritable traits can have positive or negative effects, depending on environmental context. Thus, traits that increase risk for mental disorders when the environment is negative can be adaptive when the e...

Objective:: Alcohol and cannabis misuse are related to impaired cognition. When inferring causality, four nonexclusive theoretical models can account for this association: 1) a common underlying vulnerability model; 2) a neuroplasticity model in which impairment is concurrent with changes in substance use but temporary because of neuroplastic brai...

Background: Prenatal exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) has been associated with cognitive deficits and behavioral problems in children. To date, no study has examined this exposure in association with neurobehavioral development in infants younger than 12 months assessed with observational tasks. Objectives: This study examined the...

Background Adipocytokines may play a role in fetal programming of neurodevelopment. We aimed to investigate the associations between cord blood adipocytokine concentrations and children's intelligence test scores. Methods We used data from two ongoing pregnancy cohorts in North America: the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC...

This review examines the current state of knowledge regarding children's biological stress response during the transition from preschool to compulsory formal schooling, focusing on longitudinal studies that include repeated measures of cortisol concentrations in saliva or scalp hair. In all, eight independent studies (ten publications) were found a...

Across age groups, differences in connectivity of the mesolimbic and the prefrontal cortex co-vary with trait impulsivity and sensation-seeking. Impulsivity and sensation-seeking are also known to increase during early adolescence as maturation of subcortical structures outpaces that of the prefrontal cortex. While an imbalance between the striatum...

Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - The Cambridge Handbook of Violent Behavior and Aggression - edited by Alexander T. Vazsonyi

Atypical head circumference (HC) growth has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. However, whether it is associated with specific aspects of development in early childhood in the general population is unknown. The objective of this study was to assess the predictive value of HC growth as an early biomarker of behavioral traits. We exam...

Little is known about the development of number knowledge (NK) and the antecedents of low-persistent NK profiles in early childhood. We documented the developmental trajectories of NK across the transition from preschool to elementary school, their predictive validity with respect to later math achievement, and the child and family early-life facto...