Background: Individual stress responses in a virtual standardized stress task vary and might be influenced by more or less social presence which provokes different levels of rumination during the stress task. This has not been investigated in detail. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association of subjective stress and state rumination in a controlled laboratory setting where social presence was varied.
Methods: 68 healthy adults (18-36, m/f, 13/87%) were exposed to a virtual version of the Trier Social Stress Test (V-TSST) with two social presence conditions (with or without presence of a human experimenter). Subjective stress and state rumination were repeatedly assessed through the V-TSST protocol.
Results: Preliminary analyses revealed an association of subjective stress levels and state rumination in the social presence condition only. Participants’ state rumination was associated with low levels of valence (r = -.732, p < .001) and low levels of calmness (r = -.646, p < .001). There was no association of state rumination and arousal and none of the associations were significant in the non-social presence condition.

Background: Adolescence is marked by sex-specific developmental trajectories of cerebral structures and systems involved in affect-regulation. In parallel, adolescence witnesses a dramatic increase in the incidence of internalizing disorders, disadvantaging females. Several biological/physiological factors, such as hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress-axis activity, the autonomic nervous system and the oxidoreductive balance have been associated with internalizing disorders and may represent critical factors potentially underlying sexual dimorphism in the expression of internalizing disorders. However, sex-specific interactions between these factors and internalizing symptoms and their link with brain maturation remain unexplored.
Material and Methods: Adolescents aged 13 to 15 from the general population (n = 68, 57% females) provided self-report of internalizing symptoms (STAI-trait and BDI), blood samples and underwent diffusion-weighted MRI. Peripheral glutathione-cycle redox homeostasis (i.e., antioxidant activity of the GSH-peroxidase (GPx) and reductase (Gred)) was measured in red blood cells and cortisol, its precursor 11-deoxycortisol and their ratio (cortisol/11-deoxycortisol ratio) were measured by LC-MS in the serum.
Results: Female adolescents displayed higher levels of trait anxiety and depressive symptoms, GPx activity and cortisol/11-deoxycortisol ratio than males. There was a strong correlation between GPx and Gred activities in females only. The cortisol/11-deoxycortisol ratio, related to HPA-axis activity, was associated with internalizing symptoms in both sexes, whereas GPx activity was associated with internalizing symptoms in females specifically. The cortisol/11-deoxycortisol ratio mediated sex-differences in internalizing symptoms and the association between anxiety and GPx activity in females specifically. In females, GPx activity was positively associated with generalized fractional anisotropy in widespread white matter brain regions.
Conclusion: We found that higher levels of internalizing symptoms in female adolescents than in males relate to sex-differences in HPA-axis function. In females, our results suggest an important interplay between HPA-axis function and GSH-antioxidant balance, a parameter strongly associated with brain white matter microstructure.

Background: Self-regulatory control processes is associated with the emergence and maintenance of externalizing symptoms. However, the specific understanding of this association at a dynamical micro-level at the within-person is not explored. Therefore, this study examines the interrelationships of self-regulatory control processes (e.g., anger dysregulation and self-control) and its role for the emergence of violence (i.e., externalizing behaviors) in adolescents, integrating the within- and between-person level.
Methods: Sixty-two male adolescents with various degree of behavioral and emotional problems undertook an ambulatory assessment over 9 days (4x/ day).
Results: Network analyses revealed at the within-person level temporal dynamic within the day and a cross-sectional (in real time) relationships between states of anger, anger rumination, response inhibition and self-control. Multi-level regression analyses revealed that violent ideations and behaviors at the same measurement were related to lower self-control and higher anger rumination, at the within-person level. Violent ideation led to violent behaviors in the next time-point (next measure) and states of anger lead to violent ideations the next day. Conclusion: Our original approach combining within- and between-person level gives important insights on the interrelationships of self-regulatory control (and in particular anger dysregulation) processes and their role in violence (i.e., externalizing symptoms) in male adolescents.

Background: Adolescence is a crucial time for psychiatric illnesses, as it is both a time of stress and vulnerability but also a propitious timing for targeted early interventions. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have received growing interest as a cost-efficient nonpharmacological way of improving mental health. Results are now clearer for adults but are still mixed for adolescents. In particular, there is contradictory evidence regarding the use of MBI for the general public and need for more research on the mechanisms of action. One of its underlying process, emotion regulation, has gained more and more interest as an early marker for psychological disorders. Therefore, we aimed to examine the impact of MBI on emotion regulation strategies during a naturalistic task of emotion reactivity and regulation in young adolescents.
Methods: The Mindfulteen study is a two-arm randomized controlled trial in which adolescents from the general population, aged 13 to 15, undergo an 8-week mindfulness program. In this subtask, participants are asked to describe their tension level and emotion regulation strategies for twelve imaginary scenarios, before and after the mindfulness training. Answers are regrouped into a taxonomy of 16 categories by two different raters, with a third independent coder who then solved disagreements. A multilevel logistic regression model (GLMM) is fitted to the data, with use of follow up chi-squared tests.
Results: We find a main effect of the intervention on emotion regulation strategies use between the two groups. Post-hoc t-tests show a significant decrease in the use of acceptance and problem solving, and a highly significant increase in the use of relaxation.
Conclusion: This study is a promising lead on identifying the specific impact of mindfulness on emotion regulation strategies amongst adolescents, which could prove useful for implementing wider-scale research.

Des études récentes ont mis en lumière le potentiel de la musique en tant que ressource pour promouvoir l'agentivité et l'autonomie chez les adolescents.tes et les jeunes adultes (Saarikallio, 2019). La musique réduit la solitude et renforce les relations sociales chez les jeunes (Schafer et al., 2020). Elle joue un rôle crucial dans le bien-être mental (Perkins et al., 2020) et la régulation émotionnelle, tout en contribuant à la prévention de la violence chez les jeunes adultes présentant des troubles psychologiques (Wölfl, 2019). La pandémie de la COVID-19 a été associée à une augmentation notable des symptômes dépressifs chez les personnes âgées de 15 à 24 ans (Coynel et al., 2021). Dans ce contexte, notre équipe de recherche interdisciplinaire formée d’une psychologue, d’infirmiers. ères, d’une sociologue et d'ingénieurs utilise la musique comme ressource pour soutenir les jeunes confrontés à des problèmes de santé mentale et d'intégrer la musique dans un jeu vidéo. L'utilisation des jeux vidéo dans le traitement des jeunes présentant des symptômes psychiatriques est prometteuse (Cox et al., 2017) et mérite d'être encouragée car ces jeux ont le potentiel de faciliter le processus thérapeutique (Leroux, 2019). Notre objectif est de développer un Care game, un jeu vidéo qui favorise le bien-être, les interactions positives et les émotions chez les jeunes pendant leur hospitalisation en unité psychiatrique. Ce jeu encouragera les joueurs à explorer leurs émotions de manière ludique, motivante et apaisante, en les liant aux aspects émotionnels de la musique, en les partageant avec d'autres joueurs et en favorisant ainsi des connexions positives et significatives. L'originalité du projet réside dans son approche participative. Tout au long du développement du jeu (24 mois), les jeunes patients psychiatriques et leurs soignants.tes sont activement impliqués dans l’élaboration du concept du jeu. Cela garantit non seulement que le jeu développé réponde aux besoins, aux attentes, aux intérêts et aux capacités de ses futurs utilisateurs.trices, mais permet également aux participants.tes de partager leurs connaissances en tant qu'auditeurs.trices de musique et joueurs.euses de jeux vidéo. Notre projet a débuté au printemps 2023 et se terminera en automne 2024. Nous aurons l'opportunité de présenter ici les résultats finaux de notre projet.

ELPE, un nouvel espace de détection et de prévention des troubles de langage dans la petite enfance proposé à la population genevoise
(Caroline Fachinetti/logopédiste, Catherine Keller-Meuret/logopédiste, Simone Hardt Steffenino/pédopsychiatre, Unité de Guidance Petite Enfance, SPEA, HUG)
Le développement du cerveau humain montre que les trois premières années de vie sont essentielles afin que se développe le langage qui représente une condition à l’accès aux fonctions cognitives supérieures.
En lien avec une pénurie de logopédistes (listes d’attente de plus de 6 mois) disponibles pour accueillir les très jeunes enfants pour un bilan et/ou un traitement logopédique, s’est développé un nouveau dispositif de détection et de prévention des troubles du développement du langage. Parallèlement nous observons une augmentation de ces troubles (souvent dans un contexte de troubles du développement plus global).
Le dispositif innovateur, fonctionnel depuis 2019, est né d’une collaboration entre les HUH (Guidance Petite Enfance), le BIC (Bureau d’intégration et de la citoyenneté), l’ARDS (Association romande des logopédistes), le CLIGE (Centre de logopédistes indépendantes de Genève, tout comme la Ville de Genève et plusieurs communes genevoises.
Le but de la présentation est de montrer le fonctionnement du dispositif et son évolution actuelle, de présenter les premiers résultats, de discuter l’impact positif sur l’inquiétude parentale et la possibilité de soutenir les parents dans leur posture parentale afin que le traitement logopédique puisse en quelque sorte débuter avant la prise en charge logopédique classique.