The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between personality, the serotonin transporter (5HTT) polymorphisms and the occurrence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in elite athletes. 133 healthy participants completed the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). The mood states were assessed using the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire. The athlete’s mental skills were assessed through the Sport Performance Psychological Inventory (IPPS-48). The occurrence of psychiatric and personality disorders was assessed using the Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders. A polymerase chain reaction was employed to identify genotypes at the 5HTTLPR polymorphism. The 5HTTLPR s/s genotype was associated with both neuroticism (p< 0.001) and tension/anxiety symptoms according to the POMS (p<0.02), cognitive anxiety and emotional arousal control according to the IPPS-48 (p<0.01). Significant correlations were proved between neuroticism and symptoms of anxiety and depression (p<0.05). Neuroticism mediates the association between the 5HTTLPR polymorphism and symptoms of cognitive anxiety and emotional arousal control (p<0.05). These results suggest a significant interaction between the 5HTTLPR polymorphism, neuroticism and sport related stress that predict adverse mental health outcomes in athletes. Identification of homogeneous groups of athletes having predispositions to anxiety and depressive symptoms may help to implement early prevention programs.

We found a suggestive association between NOS3 (-786 T/C; G298A) and UCP2 (A55V) polymorphisms and power athletes, whereas no significant correlation was found with UCP3 (-55C/T), ACE (I/D), and ACTN3 (R577X) polymorphisms, in contrast to previous studies. Analysis of multiple performance-associated genetic polymorphisms needs further examination to explain the relationship between genetic background and potential success in sport performance.

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Individual variability in emotion processing may be associated with genetic variation as well as with psychological predispositions such as dispositional affect styles. Our previous fMRI study demonstrated that amygdala reactivity was independently predicted by affective-cognitive styles (phobic prone or eating disorders prone) and genotype of the serotonin transporter in a discrimination task of fearful facial expressions. Since the insula is associated with the subjective evaluation of bodily states and is involved in human feelings, we explored whether its activity could also vary in function of individual differences. In the present fMRI study, the association between dispositional affects and insula reactivity has been examined in two groups of healthy participants categorized according to affective-cognitive styles (phobic prone or eating disorders prone). Images of the faces of partners and strangers, in both painful and neutral situations, were used as visual stimuli. Interaction analyses indicate significantly different activations in the two groups in reaction to a loved one's pain: the phobic prone group exhibited greater activation in the left posterior insula. These results demonstrate that affective-cognitive style is associated with insula activity in pain empathy processing, suggesting a greater involvement of the insula in feelings for a certain cohort of people. In the mapping of individual differences, these results shed new light on variability in neural networks of emotion.

ental health disorders are frequent during the developmental years, particularly in adolescents. The leading cause of disability in young people are neuropsychiatric conditions, which if left untreated may severely affect development, including educational and social achievements. It has been reported that 10%-20% of individuals experience a form of mental disorder during childhood and adolescence worldwide. 1 One-half of them arise by 14 years of age. 2 Among adolescent mental health disorders, depression is one of the most frequent conditions, and it is indicated as one of the most alarming "new morbidities." 3,4 The onset of depression is typically around mid-to-late adolescence, and it important to recognize its early warning signs and symptoms. Early intervention can often prevent the later development of a severe depressive illness. For instance, in adolescents, depression is a major risk factor for suicide, and more than one-half of adolescent suicide victims were reported to have a depressive disorder at the time of death. 5 Depression also leads to serious social and educational maladjustments in this age group, such as an increased rate of smoking, substance misuse, eating disorders, and obesity. 6,7 This commentary aims to further raise awareness of pediatricians on the burden and risks faced by adolescents developing depression. In particular, we emphasize that new morbidities should be part of the formal training in pediatrics worldwide, enabling the new generations of pediatricians to recognize these pathologic conditions in a timely manner and effectively deal with them.

Several studies investigated the neural and functional mechanisms underlying action observation in contexts with objects. However, actions seen in everyday life are often embedded in emotional contexts. The neural systems integrating emotion cues in action observation are still poorly understood. Previous findings suggest that the processing of both action and emotion information recruits motor control areas within the cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathways. It is therefore hard to determine whether social emotional contexts influence action processing via a direct modulation of motor representations coding for the observed action or via the affective state and implicit motor preparedness elicited in observers in response to emotional contexts. Here we designed a novel fMRI task to identify neural networks engaged by the affective appraisal of a grasping action seen in two different emotional contexts, while keeping the action kinematics constant. Results confirmed that observing the same acts of grasping but in different emotional contexts modulated activity in supplementary motor area, ventrolateral thalamus, anterior cerebellum. Moreover, changes in functional connectivity between left supplementary motor area and parahippocampus in different emotional contexts suggested a direct neural pathway through which emotional contexts may drive the neural motor system. Taken together, these findings shed new light on the malleability of motor system as a function of emotional contexts.

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