Early life interpersonal stress and depression: Social reward processing as a potential mediator.

Experiencing stressful events early in life is lamentably very common and widespread across the globe. Despite the strong link between experiencing such stress and developing depression, the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. This review addresses this critical question by drawing focus to "early life interpersonal stress" (ELIS), or stressful experiences that occur within the context of a relationship where there is close, direct interaction.

Instructions and experiential learning have similar impacts on pain and pain-related brain responses but produce dissociations in value-based reversal learning.

Recent data suggest that interactions between systems involved in higher order knowledge and associative learning drive responses during value-based learning. However, it is unknown how these systems impact subjective responses, such as pain. We tested how instructions and reversal learning influence pain and pain-evoked brain activation.

Dispositional Mindfulness and Acute Heat Pain: Comparing Stimulus-Evoked Pain With Summary Pain Assessment.

Objective: Dispositional mindfulness is associated with reduced pain in clinical and experimental settings. However, researchers have neglected the type of pain assessment, as dispositional mindfulness may have unique benefits for reduced pain sensitivity when relying on summary pain assessments, in contrast to assessing the pain of each noxious stimulus. Here, we test the association between dispositional mindfulness and pain using both trial-by-trial pain assessments and overall summary ratings after acute pain tasks.

Lower neural value signaling in the prefrontal cortex is related to childhood family income and depressive symptomatology during adolescence.

Lower family income during childhood is related to increased rates of adolescent depression, though the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Evidence suggests that individuals with depression demonstrate hypoactivation in brain regions involved in reward learning and decision-making processes (e.g.

Pain or nociception? Subjective experience mediates the effects of acute noxious heat on autonomic responses - corrected and republished.

Nociception reliably elicits an autonomic nervous system (ANS) response. Because pain and ANS circuitry interact on multiple spinal, subcortical, and cortical levels, it remains unclear whether autonomic responses are simply a reflexive product of noxious stimulation regardless of how stimulation is consciously perceived or whether the experience of pain mediates ANS responses to noxious stimulation. To test these alternative predictions, we examined the relative contribution of noxious stimulation and individual pain experience to ANS responses in healthy volunteers who underwent 1 or 2 pain assessment tasks.

Poverty and self-regulation: Connecting psychosocial processes, neurobiology, and the risk for psychopathology.

In the United States, over 40% of youth under the age of 18 live at or near the federal poverty line. Several decades of research have established clear links between exposure to child poverty and the development of psychopathology, yet the mechanisms that convey this risk remain unclear. We review research in developmental science and other allied disciplines that identify self-regulation as a critical factor that may influence the development of psychopathology after exposure to poverty.

Anticipatory Effects on Perceived Pain: Associations With Development and Anxiety.

Objective: Naturalistic studies suggest that expectation of adverse experiences such as pain exerts particularly strong effects on anxious youth. In healthy adults, expectation influences the experience of pain. The current study uses experimental methods to compare the effects of expectation on pain among adults, healthy youth, and youth with an anxiety disorder.

Pain or nociception? Subjective experience mediates the effects of acute noxious heat on autonomic responses.

Nociception reliably elicits an autonomic nervous system (ANS) response. Because pain and ANS circuitry interact on multiple spinal, subcortical, and cortical levels, it remains unclear whether autonomic responses are simply a reflexive product of noxious stimulation regardless of how stimulation is consciously perceived or whether the experience of pain mediates ANS responses to noxious stimulation. To test these alternative predictions, we examined the relative contribution of noxious stimulation and individual pain experience to ANS responses in healthy volunteers who underwent 1 or 2 pain assessment tasks.