TY  - JOUR
AB  - OBJECTIVES: Anxiety disorders (AD) are common in the general population, leading to high emotional distress and disability. The German National Cohort (NAKO) is a population-based mega-cohort study, examining participants in 16 German regions. The present study includes data of the first 101,667 participants and investigates the frequency and severity of generalised anxiety symptoms and panic attacks (PA). METHODS: The Generalised Anxiety Disorder Symptoms Scale (GAD-7) and the first part of the Patient Health Questionnaire Panic Disorder (PHQ-PD) were filled out by NAKO participants (93,002). We examined the correlation of GAD-7 and PHQ-PD with demographic variables, stress (PHQ-Stress), depression (PHQ-9) and childhood trauma (CTS). RESULTS: The total proportion of prior lifetime diagnoses of AD in the NAKO cohort reached 7.8%. Panic attacks were reported by 6.0% and possible/probable current GAD symptoms in 5.2% of the examined participants. Higher anxiety severity was associated with female sex, lower education level, German as a foreign language and younger age as well as high perceived stress and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Clinically relevant GAD symptoms as well as panic attacks are frequent in the NAKO and are associated with sociodemographic factors, and high anxiety symptoms are accompanied by pronounced stress and depression levels.
AU  - Erhardt, A.*
AU  - Gelbrich, G.*
AU  - Klinger-König, J.*
AU  - Streit, F.*
AU  - Kleineidam, L.*
AU  - Riedel-Heller, S.G.*
AU  - Schmidt, B.*
AU  - Schmiedek, F.*
AU  - Wagner, M.*
AU  - Grabe, H.J.*
AU  - Rietschel, M.*
AU  - Berger, K.*
AU  - NAKO Investigators (Peters, A.)
C1  - 70142
C2  - 55033
SP  - 881-896
TI  - Generalised anxiety and panic symptoms in the German National Cohort (NAKO).
JO  - World J. Biol. Psychiatry
VL  - 24
IS  - 10
PY  - 2023
SN  - 1562-2975
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - OBJECTIVES: To describe the cognitive test battery of the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based mega cohort of 205,000 randomly selected participants, and to examine associations with demographic variables and selected psychiatric and neurological conditions. METHODS: Initial data from 96,401 participants providing data on the cognitive performance measured by a brief cognitive test battery (12-word list recall task, semantic fluency, Stroop test, digit span backwards) was examined. Test results were summarised in cognitive domain scores using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Associations with sociodemographic and psychiatric factors were analysed using linear regression and generalised additive models. RESULTS: Cognitive test results were best represented by two domain scores reflecting memory and executive functions. Lower cognitive functions were associated with increasing age and male sex. Higher education and absence of childhood trauma were associated with better cognitive function. Moderate to severe levels of anxiety and depression, and a history of stroke, were related to lower cognitive function with a stronger effect on executive function as compared to memory. Some associations with cognition differed by German language proficiency. CONCLUSIONS: The NAKO cognitive test battery and the derived cognitive domain scores for memory and executive function are sensitive measures of cognition.
AU  - Kleineidam, L.*
AU  - Stark, M.*
AU  - Riedel-Heller, S.G.*
AU  - Pabst, A.*
AU  - Schmiedek, F.*
AU  - Streit, F.*
AU  - Rietschel, M.*
AU  - Klinger-König, J.*
AU  - Grabe, H.J.*
AU  - Erhardt, A.*
AU  - Gelbrich, G.*
AU  - Schmidt, B.*
AU  - NAKO Investigators (Peters, A.)
AU  - Berger, K.*
AU  - Wagner, M.*
C1  - 67031
C2  - 53369
TI  - The assessment of cognitive function in the German National Cohort (NAKO) - Associations of demographics and psychiatric symptoms with cognitive test performance.
JO  - World J. Biol. Psychiatry
PY  - 2022
SN  - 1562-2975
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Objectives. Evaluate the block-adaptive number series task of reasoning, as a time-efficient proxy of general cognitive ability in the Level-2 sample of the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based mega cohort. Methods. The number series task consisted of two blocks of three items each, administered as part of the touchscreen-based assessment. Based on performance on the first three items, a second block of appropriate difficulty was automatically administered. Scoring of performance was based on the Rasch model. Relations of performance scores to age, sex, education, study centre, language proficiency, and scores on other cognitive tasks were examined. Results. Except for one very difficult item, the data of the remaining 14 items showed sufficient fit to the Rasch model (Infit: 0.89-1.04; Outfit: 0.80-1.08). The resulting performance scores ( N  = 21,056) had a distribution that was truncated at very high levels of ability. The reliability of the performance estimates was satisfactory. Relations to age, sex, education, and the executive function factor of the other cognitive tasks in the NAKO supported the validity. Conclusions. The number series task provides a valid proxy of general cognitive ability for the Level-2 sample of the NAKO, based on a highly time-efficient assessment procedure.
AU  - Schmiedek, F.*
AU  - Kroehne, U.*
AU  - Goldhammer, F.*
AU  - Prindle, J.J.*
AU  - Lindenberger, U.*
AU  - Klinger-König, J.*
AU  - Grabe, H.J.*
AU  - Riedel-Heller, S.G.*
AU  - Pabst, A.*
AU  - Streit, F.*
AU  - Zillich, L.*
AU  - Kleineidam, L.*
AU  - Wagner, M.*
AU  - Rietschel, M.*
AU  - Rujescu, D.*
AU  - Schmidt, B.*
AU  - Berger, K.*
AU  - NAKO Investigators (Peters, A.)
C1  - 67030
C2  - 53370
TI  - General cognitive ability assessment in the German National Cohort (NAKO) - The block-adaptive number series task.
JO  - World J. Biol. Psychiatry
PY  - 2022
SN  - 1562-2975
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - OBJECTIVES: The present study introduces the assessment of depression and depressive symptoms in the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based mega cohort. Distribution of core measures, and associations with sociodemographic factors are examined. METHODS: The current analysis includes data from the first 101,667 participants (NAKO data freeze 100,000). Depression and depressive symptoms were assessed using a modified version of the depression section of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), self-reported physician's diagnosis of depression, and the depression scale of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). RESULTS: A lifetime physician's diagnosis of depression was reported by 15.0% of participants. Of those, 47.6% reported having received treatment for depression within the last 12 months. Of the subset of 26,342 participants undergoing the full depression section of the modified MINI, 15.9% were classified by the MINI with a lifetime depressive episode. Based on the PHQ-9, 5.8% of the participants were classified as currently having a major or other depression by the diagnostic algorithm, and 7.8% according to the dimensional assessment (score ≥ 10). Increased frequency of depression measures and higher depression scores were observed in women and participants with lower education level or a family history of depression. CONCLUSIONS: The observed distributions of all depression measures and their associations with sociodemographic variables are consistent with the literature on depression. The NAKO represents a valuable epidemiologic resource to investigate depression, and the range of measures for lifetime and current depression allows users to select the most suitable instrument for their specific research question.
AU  - Streit, F.*
AU  - Zillich, L.*
AU  - Frank, J.*
AU  - Kleineidam, L.*
AU  - Wagner, M.*
AU  - Baune, B.T.*
AU  - Klinger-König, J.*
AU  - Grabe, H.J.*
AU  - Pabst, A.*
AU  - Riedel-Heller, S.G.*
AU  - Schmiedek, F.*
AU  - Schmidt, B.*
AU  - Erhardt, A.*
AU  - Deckert, J.*
AU  - NAKO Investigators (Peters, A.)
AU  - Rietschel, M.*
AU  - Berger, K.*
C1  - 67027
C2  - 53375
TI  - Lifetime and current depression in the German National Cohort (NAKO).
JO  - World J. Biol. Psychiatry
PY  - 2022
SN  - 1562-2975
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Objectives: Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) are ideally suited to identify differentially methylated genes in response to starvation.Methods: We examined high-throughput DNA methylation derived from whole blood of 47 females with AN, 47 lean females without AN and 100 population-based females to compare AN with both controls. To account for different cell type compositions, we applied two reference-free methods (FastLMM-EWASher, RefFreeEWAS) and searched for consensus CpG sites identified by both methods. We used a validation sample of five monozygotic AN-discordant twin pairs.Results: Fifty-one consensus sites were identified in AN vs. lean and 81 in AN vs. population-based comparisons. These sites have not been reported in AN methylation analyses, but for the latter comparison 54/81 sites showed directionally consistent differential methylation effects in the AN-discordant twins. For a single nucleotide polymorphism rs923768 in CSGALNACT1 a nearby site was nominally associated with AN. At the gene level, we confirmed hypermethylated sites at TNXB. We found support for a locus at NR1H3 in the AN vs. lean control comparison, but the methylation direction was opposite to the one previously reported.Conclusions: We confirm genes like TNXB previously described to comprise differentially methylated sites, and highlight further sites that might be specifically involved in AN starvation processes.
AU  - Kesselmeier, M.*
AU  - Pütter, C.*
AU  - Volckmar, A.L.*
AU  - Baurecht, H.*
AU  - Grallert, H.
AU  - Illig, T.
AU  - Ismail, K.*
AU  - Ollikainen, M.*
AU  - Silén, Y.*
AU  - Keski-Rahkonen, A.*
AU  - Bulik, C.M.*
AU  - Collier, D.A.*
AU  - Zeggini, E.*
AU  - Hebebrand, J.*
AU  - Scherag, A.*
AU  - Hinney, A.*
C1  - 49023
C2  - 41553
CY  - Abingdon
SP  - 187-199
TI  - High-throughput DNA methylation analysis in anorexia nervosa confirms TNXB hypermethylation.
JO  - World J. Biol. Psychiatry
VL  - 19
IS  - 3
PB  - Taylor & Francis Ltd
PY  - 2018
SN  - 1562-2975
ER  -