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Often appearing during this period of life which is adolescence, anxiety disorders affect one in three young people, with the risk of consolidation in adulthood. A team of Inserm researchers looked at how they could be predicted. The challenges of this discovery with Dr Jean-Luc Martinot, one of the authors of this study.
Anxiety disorders, characterized by abnormally intense and long-lasting anxiety, are very common psychiatric disorders, which generally begin in adolescence. This is why the team led by Dr. Jean-Luc Martinot, research director at Inserm and child psychiatrist, chose to work on a European cohort of adolescents and to follow them at different stages of life. Objective: to better understand and predict the onset of these disorders.
2000 teenagers from all over Europe
“To carry out this study, we recruited with an international consortium of young adolescents, all aged 14, from different northern European countries.“begins the seeker.”We chose this age because that’s when mental disorders and most addictions start.” The team of scientists thus brings together 2,000 young people in order to evaluate them under similar conditions, at 14, then at 18 and finally at 23.
“We offered these adolescents online questionnaires about their psychological health status and we also collected brain MRI imaging data and other neuropsychological information. adds Dr. Martinot.
An analysis carried out by artificial intelligence
“Then, all these data were submitted to an artificial intelligence which classified them, hierarchized, in order to determine the warning signs, which sign the occurrence of anxiety disorders.“explains the researcher again. A way of going back in time, in a way, by accumulating data from these volunteers over nearly 10 years.
By studying the analysis of artificial intelligence, three major warning signs emerged, the presence of which in adolescence significantly increases the statistical risk of anxiety disorders in adulthood. It’s about :
- Neuroticism means a “persistent tendency to feel negative emotions (fear, sadness, embarrassment, anger, guilt, disgust), poor control of impulses, and maladjustment to stress“;
- despair, which is associated with “a low score for responses to questionnaires assessing optimism and self-confidence“;
- and finally emotional symptoms, which “cover responses to questionnaires indicating symptoms such as “headache/stomachache”; “many worries, often worried”; “often unhappy, dejected or tearful”; “nervous in new situations, easily loses confidence”; “is easily scared”“.
Act on the prevention of anxiety disorders
For the scientist, these results open the way to preventing the onset of these disorders in subjects at risk. “Our study reveals for the first time that it is possible to predict in an individualized way, from adolescence, the appearance of future anxiety disorders. These identified predictors or warning signs could make it possible to detect people at risk earlier and offer them an appropriate and personalized intervention, while limiting the progression of these pathologies and their consequences on daily life. he concludes.