Exploring the Role of Immunological Biomarkers in the Association Between Mental Health Status and Executive Function in Early Adulthood
Bibliographic record
Abstract
By the time Canadians reach 40 years of age almost 50% have, or have had, a mental illness, with the majority of mental health problems first manifesting in adolescence and early adulthood. Poor mental health is the leading cause of disability in Canada and the disease burden is higher than all cancers put together, highlighting the importance of understanding this condition. People with higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptomatology, as measures of mental health status tend to have lower life satisfaction, feel less able to handle daily stresses and have a shorter life expectancy. Poor mental health is most prevalent in working‐age Canadians and is known to affect mood, thinking, and behavior. Recent evidence suggests an altered immunological state among individuals with higher depressive symptoms. It has also been found that there may be a link between an altered immune state and cognitive functioning as many cytokines play a role in communicating with the brain. The aim of the current study was to explore a potential immunological link between depressive and anxiety symptomatology with executive function in early adulthood. This study included a sample of young adults from the Niagara Longitudinal Heart Study (NLHS). Participants completed a self‐reported questionnaire that included questions about depression, anxiety, and executive function. Blood samples were collected, and serum was used to analyze levels of various immune biomarkers. Several immune markers, including interleukins and interferons were found to be associated with changes in depression and anxiety from childhood to early adulthood. These same immune biomarkers were strongly correlated with measures of executive function in early adulthood. Furthermore, participants who reported feeling depressed or anxious reported lower levels of executive function. Thus, we propose an association between mental health status, executive function, and an altered immunological state in early adulthood. This represents a potential physiological state which could help explain both poor mental health status and lower levels of executive function. These immune biomarkers may also represent a new target for research aimed at reducing the burden of mental illness and poor mental health status in early adulthood. Support or Funding Information The NLHS is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR #s 363774, 399332). ARRM is supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) program. KSD is funded by a CIHR Doctoral Research Award – Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship (RFN#167014).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".