Hui Shi

Objective: Previous studies have found that resilience is a protective factor against depression, and new antidepressant methods can be developed from the perspective of resilience. However, it remains unclear how resilience protects individuals from depressive symptoms and what neural mechanisms underlie this “protective” effect.Methods: We recruited 237 participants in our study according to the depression and anxiety clinical scale (HADS) and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), including 100 healthy controls (HADS≤7) and 137 depressed patients (HADS≥8). All participants were evaluated using 53-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to detect cerebral hemodynamic differences during autobiographical memory tasks.Results: The results showed that (1) the activation of oxy-Hb in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was significantly higher in the positive emotional valence condition than in the negative emotional valence condition for the groups of depression-high resilience and healthy-low resilience, while there was no significant difference between the positive and negative emotional valences observed in response to for the groups of depression-low resilience and healthy-high resilience. (2) Oxy-Hb activation under positive emotional valence was significantly higher in the group with healthy-low resilience than healthy-high resilience and depression-low resilience. (3) Under the negative emotional valence condition, resilience mediated the indirect effect of depression on oxy-Hb activation in the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).Conclusion: fNIRS may be a useful tool for diagnosing and characterizing depression in patients with high or low resilience and improving individual resilience may be a new perspective for diagnosing and intervening in depression.

Introduction: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted people’s routine, bringing uncertainty and stress, leading to mental health issues. This situation is particularly acute among Chinese prospective graduates in higher education stage as they cannot predict the outcomes of their studies, graduation, and career development, and therefore experience career-related stress.Methods: This study included 4041 prospective graduates in higher education stage (using handy sampling) recruited in March 2020 as participants (M_Age = 22.56, SD = 1.865), utilizing a Sparse Gaussian Graphical Model for regularized partial correlation network analysis of depression symptoms (by PHQ-9), anxiety symptoms (by GAD-7), and career-related stress, which aims to explore the role of career-related stress in the symptom networks of depression and anxiety among prospective graduates in their final semester.Results: The results revealed that fatigue, sad mood, and psychomotor symptoms in depression, as well as uncontrollable worry and trouble relaxing in anxiety, were central symptoms in the network. Additionally, sad mood and guilt belonging to depressive symptoms, and feeling afraid, restlessness, and irritability belonging to anxiety symptoms, served as bridge symptoms connecting symptom communities. Specifically, guilt as a depressive symptom showed a strong association with employment stress in career-related stress. There were no significant differences in network structure and global strength based on participants’ gender. However, despite no significant differences in network structure, the global strength of prospective graduates from Wuhan was significantly lower than samples from non-Hubei provinces, possibly indicative of a Typhoon Eye Effect.Discussion: The findings of this study can inspire psychological professionals in higher education institutions to provide support for mental interventions and therapies for prospective graduates, and addressing career development issues.

Communication is crucial in constructing the relationship between students and advisers, ultimately bridging interpersonal interactions. Only a few studies however explore the communication between postgraduate students and advisers. To fill the gaps in the empirical researches, this study uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (FNIRS) techniques to explore the neurophysiology differences in brain activation of postgraduates with different adviser-advise relationships during simulated communication with their advisers. Results showed significant differences in the activation of the prefrontal cortex between high-quality and the low-quality students during simulating and when communicating with advisers, specifically in the Broca's areas, the frontal pole, and the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. This further elucidated the complex cognitive process of communication between graduate students and advisers.

Objective: The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is strongly associated with mood symptoms. This study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technology to explore the features of brain neural activity in the dlPFC of anxious and depressed college students, during an emotional autobiographical memory task, and to understand the differences in brain cognitive mechanisms caused by anxiety and depression. Methods: A simple random sampling method was used to test 440 college students at a university with a healthy control group (HC, 220 participants), a pure depression group (PD, 92 participants), and a pure anxiety group (PA, 128 participants). The average oxyhemoglobin in the dlPFC of the subjects during the emotional autobiographical memory task was collected by a 53-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy imaging device. Results: The activation of the left dlPFC (ch13) in the pure depression group was significantly higher than in the pure anxiety group. The activation of the right dlPFC (ch48) was significantly higher under positive emotions than under negative emotions. The interaction between emotion valence and group was marginally significant, and the activation of the right dlPFC (ch41) in the pure depression group was significantly higher under positive emotion than in negative emotion. The activation of the pure depression group under positive emotions was significantly higher than that of the pure anxiety group. In comparison, the activation of the pure depression group under negative emotions was significantly lower than that of the healthy control group. The results of correlation analysis showed that the activation of the left dlPFC (ch13) was significantly negatively correlated with anxiety in positive emotions, but the activation of the right dlPFC (ch34, ch42) was significantly positively correlated with anxiety in positive and negative emotions. Conclusions: The right dlPFC was insensitive to positive emotions in college students with high-anxiety symptoms, whereas this region was insensitive to negative emotions in college students with high depressive symptoms, which might be one of the critical differences in the cognitive mechanisms of anxiety and depression. Furthermore, left and right dlPFC activation correlated differently with anxiety. The higher the anxiety level, the lower the activation on the left side, and the higher the activation on the right side. The results suggested that anxiety might reduce the function of the left dlPFC.