Assignment 2: LBA - Individual Component

Section 1 - Seasonal Affective Disorder, daylight savings time, and "normal" working hours

<aside> 🔔 Note: We initially decide on SAD, but our groups get confused about the assignment and consider switching “normal” working hours. We might incorporate burn-out in the assignment as well.

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Briefly identify the challenge and context that you will explore with your team in the next assignment. You may use the same description as your team members or complete this independently (100-200 words).
After searching, our group decides to discuss Seasonal Affective Disorder in London, United Kingdom, in terms of its root cause and effects on mental health, and potential impact on productivity. We will also study the potential treatments and policies that we can take to mitigate the negative effects.

Section 2 - Annotated bibliography

		Identify and explain three sources that will be useful as you continue to explore this topic. At least two must be scholarly sources. [100-250 words per summary] (#sourcequality)
1	Citation	Suhail, K., & Cochrane, R. (1997). Seasonal changes in affective state in samples of Asian and white women. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 32(3), 149–157. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00794614
	Summary	Since seasonal affective disorder has mostly been researched in higher latitudes, the researchers want to compare the seasonal mood variations in indigenous white and non-indigenous Asian populations. The result shows that seasonal depression peak in winter for all three groups, and Asian are the most depressed group, but anxiety and general well-being doesn’t show any variation.
2	Citation	Borchardt, V., Krause, A. L., Starck, T., Nissilä, J., Timonen, M., Kiviniemi, V., & Walter, M. (2014). Graph theory reveals hyper-functionality in visual cortices of Seasonal Affective Disorder patients. The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, 16(2), 123–134. https://doi.org/10.3109/15622975.2014.966144
	Summary	The research wants to understand the change in changes in functional connectivity typical for SAD. They compare SAD patients and healthy controls(HC) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) utilizing graph theory. There are two findings

◦ Globally affected network relates with increasing pathlength in SAD, but it’s highly restricted to the bilateral inferior occipital cortex.
◦ Lateralization, where hyper-connectedness was restricted to the right inferior occipital cortex and hyper-efficiency, was found in the left inferior occipital cortex, and those nodes became more “hub-like” in patients.

They conclude that abnormal intrinsic processing during rest primarily affects visual areas and subsequently changes whole-brain networks. | | 3 | Citation | Passynkova, N. R., & Volf, N. V. (2001). Seasonal affective disorder: Spatial organization of EEG power and coherence in the depressive state and in light-induced and summer remission. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 108(3), 169–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0925-4927(01)00122-6 | | | Summary | The researchers measure EEG(delta, theta-1, theta-2, alpha, beta-1, and beta-2 frequency) activities for 31 SAD patients and 30 control subjects before light treatment. They find that SAD patient have lower values for most frequency bands and less coherence in the right and left frontal and the right posterior regions. After the treatment, opposite effects are observed. |

Section 3 - Initial exploration

Option 3: Apply either #NeuroscienceApproaches, #ComputationalNeurosci, or #AnimalModels to explain how we study the cognitive disorder/function your group has selected, noting relevant strengths/weaknesses/considerations that could impact our confidence in predicting the outcome of intervention (250-500 words)

Surveys: The strengths of deploying a survey are easy and cheap, but it cannot have strong inference because it’s subjective to the subjects. In addition, the language translation process might create confounding variables for measurement. Suhail and Cochrane (1997) attempt to mitigate the bias by deploying multiple surveys with different time scales and types of questions (mood, behavioral).
fMRI: From Borchardt et al. (2014), we can see that fMRI can measure the connectivity of different brain regions, allowing the researchers to investigate the network in brain. Yet, the metrics to calculate the network can change the finding of the research.
EEG: EEG provides comparison for both SAD and between different brainwaves and the coherence of them but the region is less specific than fMRI.

Section 4- Appendix

Seasonal changes in affective state in samples of Asian and white women

Summary: Since seasonal affective disorder has mostly been researched in higher latitudes, the researchers want to compare the seasonal mood variations in indigenous white and non-indigenous Asian populations. The result shows that seasonal depression peak in winter for all three groups, and Asian are the most depressed group, but anxiety and general well-being doesn’t show any variation.
- White: white women
- Asian
  - Asian: women living in England but spend most of the time in their origin countries
  - Asian-British: women born and live in England
- 25 samples in each group controlled for age and socioeconomic status.
- interviewed every month for a year using Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale(HAD), Behavioral Change Inventory(BCI), the Ladder Scale of General Well-being(LSW), and a Monthly Stress Inventory(MSI)
- No evidence for the genetic hypo for SAD
Methods: Surveys
- HAD scale → for depression
  - 14 items
    - 7 for anxiety
    - 7 for depression
    - the score ranges from 0-21 where the higher the more severe
- BCI: for behavioral symptom
  - eight sections: sleep, energy, appetite, quality of sleep, quality of work, food preferences, social behavior, and weight
  - score 1-3:
    - 1 = opposite change to winter symptoms
    - 2 = no change
    - 3 = change the most in behavior
  - total score for each month: 8 -24
    - 16: neutral
    - 16: have winter depression
    - < 16: symptoms opposite to winter complaints.
- MSI
  - 14 items related to psychological, physiological, and social domains for fewer hassles.
    - 0: doesn’t exist
    - 1: exist
- LSW
  - Assess the general mental state
    - 0: completely dissatisfied with life
    - 10: completely satisfied
<aside> 💡 Researchers translate the English questions to local languages for Asian women.

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Results

Graph theory reveals hyper functionality in visual cortices of Seasonal Affective Disorder patients

Summary: The research wants to understand the change in changes in functional connectivity typical for SAD. They compare SAD patients and healthy controls(HC) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) utilizing graph theory. There are two findings
- Globally affected network relates with increasing pathlength in SAD, but it’s highly restricted to the bilateral inferior occipital cortex.
- Lateralization, where hyper-connectedness was restricted to the right inferior occipital cortex and hyper-efficiency, was found in the left inferior occipital cortex, and those nodes became more “hub-like” in patients.
They conclude that abnormal intrinsic processing during rest primarily affects visual areas and subsequently changes whole-brain networks.