Luisa Herrera’s research while affiliated with University of Chile and other places

Background: Most studies on cognitive impairment in bipolar disorder have neglected the role of early stress, despite the high frequency of childhood maltreatment in this clinical group. The aim of this study was to establish a connection between a history of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in childhood and social cognition (SC) in patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) in euthymia, and to test a possible moderating effect of the single nucleotide polymorphism rs53576 in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR). Methods: One hundred and one participants were included in this study. History of child abuse was evaluated using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form. Cognitive functioning was appraised using The Awareness of Social Inference Test (social cognition). The interaction effect between the independent variables OXTR rs53576 (AA/AG and GG) and the absence or presence of any one type of child maltreatment or a combination of types was analyzed using a generalized linear model regression. Results: BD-I patients who had been victims of physical and emotional abuse in childhood and were carriers of the GG genotype at OXTR rs53576 displayed greater SC alterations, specifically in emotion recognition. Discussion: This gene-environment interaction finding suggests a differential susceptibility model of a genetic variants that can be plausibly associated with SC functioning and might help to identify at-risk clinical subgroups within a diagnostic category. Future research aimed at testing the interlevel impact of early stress constitutes an ethical-clinical duty given the high rates of childhood maltreatment reported in BD-I patients. PR (2023) The interaction of the oxytocin receptor gene and child abuse subtypes on social cognition in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder type I.

Background Most studies on cognitive impairment in bipolar disorder have neglected the role of early stress, despite the high frequency of childhood maltreatment in this clinical group. The aim of this study was to establish a connection between a history of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in childhood and social cognition (SC) in patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) in euthymia, and to test a possible moderating effect of the single nucleotide polymorphism rs53576 in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR). Methods One hundred and one participants were included in this study. History of child abuse was evaluated using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form. Cognitive functioning was appraised using The Awareness of Social Inference Test (social cognition). The interaction effect between the independent variables OXTR rs53576 (AA/AG and GG) and the absence or presence of any one type of child maltreatment or a combination of types was analyzed using a generalized linear model regression. Results BD-I patients who had been victims of physical and emotional abuse in childhood and were carriers of the GG genotype at OXTR rs53576 displayed greater SC alterations, specifically in emotion recognition. Discussion This gene–environment interaction finding suggests a differential susceptibility model of a genetic variants that can be plausibly associated with SC functioning and might help to identify at-risk clinical subgroups within a diagnostic category. Future research aimed at testing the interlevel impact of early stress constitutes an ethical-clinical duty given the high rates of childhood maltreatment reported in BD-I patients.

Genetic and early environmental factors are interwoven in the etiology of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Epigenetic mechanisms offer the molecular machinery to adapt to environmental conditions. There are gaps in the knowledge about how epigenetic mechanisms are involved in the effects of early affective environment, development of BPD, and psychotherapy response. We reviewed the available evidence of the effects of psychotherapy on changes in DNA methylation and conducted a pilot study in a sample of 11 female adolescents diagnosed with BPD, exploring for changes in peripheral DNA methylation of FKBP5 gene, which encodes for a stress response protein, in relation to psychotherapy, on symptomatology and underlying psychological processes. For this purpose, measures of early trauma, borderline and depressive symptoms, psychotherapy outcome, mentalization, and emotional regulation were studied. A reduction in the average FKBP5 methylation levels was observed over time. Additionally, the decrease in FKBP5 methylation observed occurred only in those individuals who had early trauma and responded to psychotherapy. The results suggest an effect of psychotherapy on epigenetic mechanisms associated with the stress response. The finding that epigenetic changes were only observed in patients with early trauma suggests a specific molecular mechanism of recovery. The results should be taken with caution given the small sample size. Also, further research is needed to adjust for confounding factors and include endocrinological markers and therapeutic process variables.

Background: Most studies on cognitive impairment in Bipolar Disorder (BD) have neglected the role of early stress, despite the high frequency of childhood maltreatment in this clinical group. The aim of this study was to establish a connection between a history of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in childhood and social cognition (SC) functioning in patients with BD type I in euthymia, and to test a possible moderating effect of the polymorphism rs53576 in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene. Results: We found a high frequency of child abuse, indicating that BD patients who had been victims of physical and emotional abuse as children, and were carriers of the GG genotype at OXTR rs53576, displayed higher social cognition alterations, specifically in an emotion recognition test. Conclusions: The gene-environment interaction study presented here proposes a Differential Susceptibility model of a genetic polymorphism that can be plausibly associated with SC functioning. This evidence might help to identify at-risk clinical subgroups within a diagnostic category with well-established intra-group heterogeneity such as BD. Future research aimed at testing the inter-level impact of early stress constitutes an ethical-clinical duty in light of the high rates of childhood abuse reported in bipolar patients.

Background: Quality of life and psychological well-being are readily hampered by depression. The changes that students face during college life impact their psychological health and well-being, including the emergence of mental health problems like depression Aim: To determine the relationship between depressive symptoms, sociodemographic parameters and psychological well-being in undergraduate university students. Material and methods: Five hundred eighty university students of both sexes, from the Metropolitan and IX Regions of Chile answered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-IA) and the Ryff's psychological well-being scale. Results: Twenty eight percent of respondents had clinically significant depressive symptoms, and these were more frequent in women. There was an inverse and statistically significant relationship between psychological well-being and depressive symptoms. This fact was especially marked in dimensions of autonomy, positive relationships with others and purpose in life. Conclusions: There is a high frequency of depressive symptoms among these students. We discuss whether psychological well-being and depressive symptomatology represent two extremes within a continuum or they are two independent dimensions that can account for differential causal mechanisms linked to mental health and illness.

Recent research in psychiatric genetics has led to a move away from simple diathesis-stress models to more complex models of psychopathology incorporating a focus on gene–environment interactions and epigenetics. Our increased understanding of the way biology encodes the impact of life events on organisms has also generated more sophisticated theoretical models concerning the molecular processes at the interface between “nature” and “nurture.” There is also increasing consensus that psychotherapy entails a specific type of learning in the context of an emotional relationship (i.e., the therapeutic relationship) that may also lead to epigenetic modifications across different therapeutic treatment modalities. This paper provides a systematic review of this emerging body of research. It is concluded that, although the evidence is still limited at this stage, extant research does indeed suggest that psychotherapy may be associated with epigenetic changes. Furthermore, it is argued that epigenetic studies may play a key role in the identification of biomarkers implicated in vulnerability for psychopathology, and thus may improve diagnosis and open up future research opportunities regarding the mechanism of action of psychotropic drugs as well as psychotherapy. We review evidence suggesting there may be important individual differences in susceptibility to environmental input, including psychotherapy. In addition, given that there is increasing evidence for the transgenerational transmission of epigenetic modifications in animals and humans exposed to trauma and adversity, epigenetic changes produced by psychotherapy may also potentially be passed on to the next generation, which opens up new perspective for prevention science. We conclude this paper stressing the limitations of current research and by proposing a set of recommendations for future research in this area.