Mental Health and Thinking Abilities: A New Way to Understand Their Connection

What is it about?

Many people with mental health challenges also struggle with thinking skills like memory, attention, or decision-making. But scientists still don’t fully understand how these two areas are connected. One reason might be that many mental health conditions share overlapping symptoms, making it hard to pinpoint what’s really driving these thinking difficulties. We wanted to find out whether the shared features across different mental health concerns might be linked to difficulties with thinking skills. In our study, we looked at over 1,000 adults who were experiencing mental health concerns. We used a new data-driven approach called dimensional models to explore patterns in their mental health symptoms and thinking abilities. These models help us move beyond traditional labels like “depression” or “anxiety” and instead look at symptoms on a spectrum. They also help us understand what is common across different mental health symptoms and what is shared across different thinking skills. We found that people with more severe overall mental health symptoms tended to have more difficulties with thinking. One group in particular, those who felt emotionally distant or disconnected from others (a pattern called detachment), had the most consistent problems with thinking and social understanding. Our findings suggest that using dimensional models can help researchers and clinicians better understand how mental health and thinking skills are related. This could lead to more personalized and effective treatments in the future.

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Photo by 胡 卓亨 on Unsplash

Photo by 胡 卓亨 on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Thinking skills like memory and attention are essential for everyday life - helping us work, study, care for ourselves, and connect with others. But these abilities often decline when people face mental health challenges, and we still don’t fully understand why. This study used a new approach to look at mental health symptoms and thinking skills as patterns rather than separate diagnoses. It found that people with more severe symptoms, and especially those who feel emotionally distant, tend to have more trouble with thinking. These findings could help health care providers recognize thinking difficulties earlier and tailor treatments to the specific patterns of symptoms a person is experiencing, leading to more effective and personalized care.

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