Facing the complexity of neurobiological maturation

Adolescence is a critical period of human development. The growing individual is facing tremendous change, experiencing challenges on a biological, societal, inter- and intra­individual level. The transition from childhood to puberty, to adolescence and early adulthood represents a sensitive period. Considering that the vast majority of mental disorders have their onset during adolescence, [neurobiological] research in youth is key for our understanding of developmental trajectories and the identification of early precursors of pathology. In the past decades, a focus on adolescents enabled us to differentiate effects and phenomena associated with first-onset pathology from those associated with long-term illness and chronicity. However, the aforementioned changes related to pubertal development pose a considerable challenge to the research methodology. Intra- and inter-individual differences on variables of interest present with greater variance during adolescence, calling to disentangle findings on aberrant and normative development rooted in the complex interplay of various physiological systems and their interaction under development, and natural variance. Further, it is evident, that psychopathology cannot be sufficiently described on a single domain of functioning or level of observation (i.e., that psychiatric disorders are solely related to mechanisms of brain function). A more holistic view, integrating different physiological systems and their interactions in maintaining physiological and psychological wellbeing, is warranted.

We try to address these issue, by bringing together experts from different fields and combining different methods of scientific investigation. Examples of our efforts to take a multimodal approach in child and adolescent psychiatry:

• Koenig J, Lischke A, Bardtke K, Heinze AL, Kröller F, Pahnke R, Kaess M. Altered Psychobiological Reactivity but No Impairment of Emotion Recognition Following Stress in Adolescents with Nonsuicidal Self-injury. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 2023: 273(3): 379-395; DOI: 10.1007/s00406-022-01496-4 [PubMed]
• Höper S, Kröller F, Heinze AL, Bardtke KF, Kaess M, Koenig J. Prefrontal cortex activation under stress as a function of borderline personality disorder in female adolescents engaging in non-suicidal self-injury. BJPsych Open 2024; 10(5):e142; DOI: 10.1192/bjo.2024.728. [PubMed]
• Koenig J, Westlund Schreiner M, Klimes-Dougan B, Ubani B, Mueller B, Kaess M, Cullen KR. Brain Structural Thickness and Resting State Autonomic Function in Adolescents with Major Depression. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) 2018; 13(7):741-753, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsy046;[PubMED]
• Steinfurth ECK, Wendt J, Geisler F, Hamm AO, Thayer JF, Koenig J. Resting State High-Frequency Heart Rate Variability Is Associated with Neural Activity During Explicit Emotion Regulation. Frontiers in Neuroscience 2018; 12:794 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00794, [PubMED]
• Zenker M, Venz J, Koenig J, Voss C, Beesdo-Baum K, Pieper L. Evidence for the association between physiological and emotional states in adolescents and young adults without psychopathology under ecologically valid conditions. Psychophysiology. 2021; 58(10):e13902. DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13902 [PubMED]
• Mürner-Lavanchy I, Koenig J, Reichl C, Josi J, Cavelti M, Kaess M. The quest for a biological phenotype of adolescent non-suicidal self-injury: a machine-learning approach. Transl Psychiatry. 2024; 14(1):56. DOI: 10.1038/s41398-024-02776-4 [PubMED]
• Peschel SKV, Sigrist C, Voss C, Fürtjes S, Berwanger J, Ollmann TM, Kische H, Rückert F, Koenig J, Beesdo-Baum K. Subclinical patterns of disordered eating behaviors in the daily life of adolescents and young adults from the general population. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2024  6;18(1):69. DOI: 10.1186/s13034-024-00752-w [PubMED]