The interplay between childhood trauma, cognitive biases, and cannabis use on the risk of psychosis in nonclinical young adults in Poland

Abstract

Background. Childhood traumatic events are risk factors for psychotic-like experiences (PLEs). However, the mechanisms explaining how trauma may contribute to the development of PLEs are not fully understood. In our study, we investigated whether cannabis use and cognitive biases mediate the relationship between early trauma and PLEs. Methods. A total sample of 6,772 young adults (age 26.6 ± 4.7, 2,181 male and 3,433 female) was recruited from the general population to participate in an online survey. We excluded 1,158 individuals due to a self-reported lifetime diagnosis of any mental disorder. The online survey included selected items from the following questionnaires: Traumatic Experience Checklist (TEC, 3 items), Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire (CECA.Q, 3 items), Cannabis Problems Questionnaire (CPQ, 10 items), Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS-18, 9 items), and Prodromal Questionnaire-16 (PQ-16). Mediation analyses were performed with respect to different categories of traumatic experiences (emotional, physical and sexual abuse as well as emotional neglect). Results. Our results showed significant associations of any time of childhood trauma with higher scores of cannabis use (CPQ), cognitive biases (DACOBS), and PLEs (PQ-16) (p < 0.001). We found a direct effect of childhood trauma on PLEs as well as significant indirect effect mediated through cannabis use and cognitive biases. All models tested for the effects of specific childhood adversities revealed similar results. The percentage of variance in PQ-16 scores explained by serial mediation models varied between 32.8 and 34.2% depending on childhood trauma category. Conclusion. Cannabis use and cognitive biases play an important mediating role in the relationship between childhood traumatic events and the development of PLEs in a nonclinical young adult population.

Preventive interventions for individuals at ultra high risk for psychosis: An updated and extended meta-analysis

“…For the UHR population, a similar focus should be placed on the detection and treatment of risk factors and comorbidities to improve general health, well-being, and social and vocational functioning. Research indicates that the route from UHR to FEP is paved with interacting risk factors such as traumatic experiences, drug abuse (Belbasis et al, 2018), cognitive biases (Frydecka et al, 2020), worry, anxiety, insomnia and negative self-beliefs (Freeman, Taylor, Molodynski, & Waite, 2019) that may be effectively addressed with psychotherapy, which appears to improve resilience and the skills needed to cope with future problems. In psychotic disorders, recent studies have shown promising results in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (van den Berg et al, 2015), worry (Freeman, Dunn, et al, 2015), sleep disorder (Freeman, Waite, et al, 2015), and other causal risk factors in the development and maintenance of psychosis.…”

Neural Correlates of Aberrant Salience and Source Monitoring in Schizophrenia and at-Risk Mental States - A Systematic Review of fMRI Studies

“…-a significant correlation between mPFC signal and verbal memory scores at posttraining in SCH-AT (r=0.51); no significant correlations at baseline nor in the SCH-CG group after intervention -no significant correlation between mPFC activity and executive functions at post-training -a significant correlation between the level of reality monitoring signal within the a priori spherical mPFC ROI immediately after training and ratings of social functioning at the 6 month follow-up (r=0.55) = 1.1) and also specifically identified more self-generated items (d = 1.01), with a trend effect for externally presented items (p = 0.07). The SCH-AT subjects, when compared to the HC subjects, identified the source of more word items overall at 16 -a significant main effect of group (d = 2.02); no significant interaction between mood and group, task accuracy and group, or between mood and task accuracy and group -between-group contrasts revealed HC performed significantly better than SCH at overall source-memory identification across both self-generated and externally presented word items (d = 0.87)…”

“…It is then likely that several cognitive biases play a role in the etiology of psychotic symptoms. In line with cognitive approaches to psychosis [14,15] as well as with the observations that different factors may have additive effect on the risk of psychosis [16,17], different combinations of cognitive biases may also play a role. And yet, various cognitive biases are relatively rarely investigated simultaneously, despite that such studies could advance understanding of how these biases interact and how they lead to the development of psychotic symptoms in combination.…”

Neural Correlates of Aberrant Salience and Source Monitoring in Schizophrenia and At-Risk Mental States—A Systematic Review of fMRI Studies

“…It is then likely that several cognitive biases play a role in the etiology of psychotic symptoms. In line with cognitive approaches to psychosis [14,15] as well as with the observations that different factors may have additive effect on the risk of psychosis [16,17], different combinations of cognitive biases may also play a role. And yet, various cognitive biases are relatively rarely investigated simultaneously, despite the fact that such studies could advance understanding of how these biases interact and how they lead to the development of psychotic symptoms in combination.…”