Who gets bullied? Using genetic information to identify individual vulnerabilities

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Lucy Bowes explores a multi-polygenic score approach to identifying individual vulnerabilities associated with the risk of bullying, which suggests that depression, ADHD, risk taking, BMI and intelligence are independently associated with exposure to bullying.

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Genetic predictors of depression trajectories in adolescence

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Megan Skelton explores a study that uses polygenic scores in the context of longitudinal developmental data, to characterise developmental trajectories and the role of neuropsychiatric genetic risk variants in early-onset depression.

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Joint risks? Tobacco and cannabis and psychotic symptoms

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James MacCabe appraises a recent study, which looks at the association of combined patterns of tobacco and cannabis use in adolescents who go on to experience psychotic symptoms.

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Persistent and severe postnatal depression predicts adverse outcomes in children

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Sophie Graham and Jennifer Burgess explore the associations between persistent and severe postnatal depression in mothers and mental health and educational outcomes in their offspring.

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The Origins of Happiness: can we predict life satisfaction?

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Paul Ramchandani considers the methods, findings and implications of a new book by Andrew E. Clark, Sarah Fleche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee and George Ward, entitled: ‘The Origins of Happiness: The science of well-being over the life course’.

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Poor social communication in children may be a risk factor for social anxiety

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Carla McEnery appraises a new study that asks: are social and communication difficulties a risk factor for the development of social anxiety?

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Early menarche associated with depressive symptoms in early adolescence

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Emily Stapley summarises a Mendelian randomisation study that investigates associations between the timing of menarche with depressive symptoms and depression in adolescence.

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Does teenage cannabis use lower intelligence?

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Ian Hamilton presents his debut blog on a recent prospective cohort study on the relationship between teenage cannabis use, IQ and educational attainment.

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Childhood sleep disturbance and risk of psychotic experiences

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Joanne Wallace explores the relationship between nightmares/night terrors at age 12 with psychotic experiences at age 18, which has been confirmed by a recent UK birth cohort study.

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Bullying is bad for your mental health, even if you are the bully

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Clinicians and mental health researchers have long recognised that there is a link between traumatic experiences in childhood and symptoms of psychosis or non-clinical psychotic experiences presenting in adolescence or adulthood. One type of traumatic experience is the experience of abuse, whether physical, emotional or social in nature.  When it comes to bullying, any or [read the full story…]