Little is known as to whether childhood temperament is associated with long-term sickness absence in adult life.

To explore the associations between childhood temperament and long-term sickness absence in middle age.

The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s study is comprised of 12 150 children born in Aberdeen 1950–55. Teachers completed the Aberdeen–London Child Behaviour Scale (Rutter B) for all participants in 1964. Current employment status was ascertained for 7183 (63.7%) in 2001.

Five and a half per cent of responders classified themselves as ‘permanently sick or disabled’ at follow-up. ‘Often complains of aches and pains’ (OR=6.75, 95% CI 1.28–35.5) and ‘Often appears miserable or unhappy’ (OR=3.81, 95% CI 1.01–14.4) were strongly associated with being permanently sick or disabled following adjustment for year of birth, gender, IQ and father's social class.

Childhood temperament is strongly associated with sickness absence in middle age.

The aim was to evaluate long-term outcome of DSM–III–R panic disorder at a mean of 5.3 years following a controlled trial of treatment that included antidepressants and behavioural counselling.

Sixty-eight (86%) subjects were evaluated by lengthy research interview.

Thirty-four per cent recovered and remained well, 46% were minimally impaired and 20% had persistent panic disorder of whom half remained significantly impaired. Anxious–fearful personality dysfunction was the most important predictor of poor outcome, followed by poor clinical status at discharge and inability at baseline to recall vividly the initial panic attack. Those who dropped out from the original trial did badly.

Complete recovery can occur even after many years of severe illness in a large minority of subjects who receive both antidepressants and behavioural counselling in the acute stage of treatment. The comparative prognostic value of personality, severity and chronicity need to be more fully addressed in future studies.

Despite depressive disorders being very common there has been little research to guide primary care physicians on the choice of treatment for patients with mild to moderate depression.

To evaluate the efficacy of interpersonal counselling compared with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in primary care attenders with major depression and to identify moderators of treatment outcome.

A randomised controlled trial in nine centres (DEPICS, Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry number: ACTRN12608000479303). The primary outcome was remission of the depressive episode (defined as a Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score 7 at 2 months). Daily functioning was assessed using the Work and Social Adjustment Scale. Logistic regression models were used to identify moderators of treatment outcome.

The percentage of patients who achieved remission at 2 months was significantly higher in the interpersonal counselling group compared with the SSRI group (58.7% v. 45.1%, P = 0.021). Five moderators of treatment outcome were found: depression severity, functional impairment, anxiety comorbidity, previous depressive episodes and smoking habit.

We identified some patient characteristics predicting a differential outcome with pharmacological and psychological interventions. Should our results be confirmed in future studies, these characteristics will help clinicians to define criteria for first-line treatment of depression targeted to patients' characteristics.

Both attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders with a high prevalence. They are often comorbid and both exhibit abnormalities in sustained attention, yet common and distinct neural patterns of ASD and ADHD remain unidentified.

To investigate shared and distinct functional connectivity patterns in a relatively large sample of boys (7- to 15-year-olds) with ADHD, ASD and typical development matched by age, gender and IQ.

We applied machine learning techniques to investigate patterns of surface-based brain resting-state connectivity in 86 boys with ASD, 83 boys with ADHD and 125 boys with typical development.

We observed increased functional connectivity within the limbic and somatomotor networks in boys with ASD compared with boys with typical development. We also observed increased functional connectivity within the limbic, visual, default mode, somatomotor, dorsal attention, frontoparietal and ventral attention networks in boys with ADHD compared with boys with ASD. In addition, using a machine learning approach, we were able to discriminate typical development from ASD, typical development from ADHD and ASD from ADHD with accuracy rates of 76.3%, 84.1%, and 79.3%, respectively.

Our results may shed new light on the underlying mechanisms of ASD and ADHD and facilitate the development of new diagnostic methods for these disorders.

J.K. holds equity in a startup company, MNT.

White-matter hyperintensities have been associated with both schizophrenia and mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder, but results are inconsistent across studies

To examine whether white-matter hyperintensities are a vulnerability marker for psychosis or are specifically associated with bipolar disorder

T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired in 129 individuals with first-episode psychosis (either affective or non-affective psychoses) and 102 controls who were randomly selected from the same geographical areas. Visual white-matter hyperintensity ratings were used for group and subgroup comparisons

There were no statistically significant between-group differences in white-matter hyperintensity frequency or severity scores. No significant correlations were found between white-matter hyperintensity scores and duration of illness, duration of untreated psychosis, or severity of psychotic, manic or depressive symptoms

White-matter hyperintensities are not associated with vulnerability to psychosis in general, or specifically with affective psychoses. Further, first-episode psychosis investigations using more quantitative methods are warranted to confirm these findings

Previous investigations into the impact of birth complications and social environment have generally followed their subjects only at young ages.

To assess the long-range impact of socio-economic status (SES) and birth risks on the development of emotional and nervous conditions through adulthood.

The Johns Hopkins Pathways Study interviewed 1824 subjects born between 1960 and 1965. The median household income of the children at age 7–8 years was used to divide the cohort into high and low income categories. Differences in lifetime prevalence of emotional and nervous conditions through adulthood between the two income groups were identified.

Children in the lower income group were 1.86 times more likely to report an emotional or nervous condition in adult life. Boys in the lower income group at age 7–8 years were 3.2 times more likely to do so. The risks of difficult birth for adult mental disturbance were accentuated in the low-income group.

Children who experience birth complications are at increased risk of developing adult mental disturbances; this increase is mitigated by higher SES.