Neural markers of emotion regulation difficulties in adolescent depression and risk for depression.

Depressed individuals tend to use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies more frequently than non-depressed individuals while using adaptive strategies (e.g., reappraisal) less frequently.

Social Media Use as a Predictor of Positive and Negative Affect: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study of Adolescents with and without Clinical Depression.

Social media use is common in adolescents, with implications for psychosocial development and the emergence of depression. Yet, little is known about the time-linked connections between social media use and adolescents' affective experiences and how they may differ between depressed and non-depressed youth. We leveraged ecological momentary assessment in adolescents oversampled for current depression to examine (1) associations between social media use and concurrent and later positive and negative affect and (2) sex and presence of a depressive disorder as moderators of these associations.

Characterizing positive and negative valence systems function in adolescent depression: An RDoC-informed approach integrating multiple neural measures.

Depression is a prevalent, debilitating, and costly disorder that often manifests in adolescence. There is an urgent need to understand core pathophysiological processes for depression to inform more targeted intervention efforts. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Positive Valence Systems (PVS) and Negative Valence Systems (NVS) have both been implicated in depression symptomatology and vulnerability; however, the nature of NVS alterations is unclear across studies, and associations between single neural measures and symptoms are often small in magnitude and inconsistent.

Participation in genetic screening: testing different outreach methods across a diverse hospital system based patient population.

Genomics has the potential to transform medicine by identifying genetic risk factors that predispose people to certain illnesses. Use of genetic screening is rapidly expanding and shifting towards screening all patients regardless of known risk factors, but research is limited on the success of broad population-level outreach for genetic testing and the effectiveness of different outreach methods across diverse populations. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of Digital Only (emailing and texting) and Brochure Plus Digital (mailed brochure, emailing, and texting) outreach to encourage a diverse patient population to participate in a large hospital system's whole genome sequencing program.

Interpersonal Trauma Effects on Adolescent Depression: The Moderating Role of Neurophysiological Responses to Positive Interpersonal Images.

Trauma exposure is associated with a heightened risk for depression and such risk is thought to vary based on the type of traumatic events (e.g., interpersonal, including abuse and domestic violence, or non-interpersonal, including accidents or natural disasters).

Targeting positive valence systems function in children of mothers with depressive symptoms: A pilot randomized trial of an RDoC-Informed preventive intervention.

Reduced activation of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) positive valence systems (PVS) is observed in high-risk (HR) children of depressed mothers and predictive of future psychopathologies. We developed a dyadic, neuroscience-informed preventive intervention, Family Promoting Positive Emotions (FPPE), designed to prevent psychopathology in HR children by targeting PVS processes. We evaluated the initial efficacy of FPPE compared to written information (WI) psychoeducation in engaging PVS-related targets and reducing perceived stress and emotional distress symptoms in HR youth.

Social Support and Parental Conflict as Predictors of Outcomes of Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression.

Group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for adolescent depression, but outcomes vary. Our goal was to examine interpersonal factors that predict response to group CBT for adolescent depression using a broad range of outcomes, including depressive symptoms, session attendance, treatment completion, engagement, and improvement. Seventy adolescents (age 14-18) with depression completed self-report measures of social support and parental conflict and were offered an established 16-session group CBT program.

Neural Predictors of Improvement With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents With Depression: An Examination of Reward Responsiveness and Emotion Regulation.

Earlier depression onsets are associated with more debilitating courses and poorer life quality, highlighting the importance of effective early intervention. Many youths fail to improve with evidence-based treatments for depression, likely due in part to heterogeneity within the disorder. Multi-method assessment of individual differences in positive and negative emotion processing could improve predictions of treatment outcomes.

Associations between parental conflict and social and monetary reward responsiveness in adolescents with clinical depression.

Increased rates of depression beginning in adolescence are thought to be attributed in part to marked developmental changes in reward systems and interpersonal relationships. Blunted reward response has been observed in depression and this may be shaped in part by social experiences, raising questions about the combined associations of parental conflict, depression, and reward response in both social and monetary domains. The present study used the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential that indexes both monetary and social reward processing, to examine the unique and combined associations of parental conflict and depressive symptoms on reward responsiveness in adolescents with clinical depression (N = 70) 14-18 years of age (M = 15.

#socialdistancing: Social Media Use and Online Social Support Moderate the Effect of Pandemic-Related Stress on Internalizing Symptoms in Emerging Adults.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major stressors, increases in internalizing symptomatology, and greater reliance on online interactions. We examined associations between social media use, online social support, pandemic-related stress, and internalizing symptoms, and tested the moderating role of social media use on the relation between stress and symptom change across time.

Methods: Emerging adults aged 18-25 (=200) self-reported pandemic-related stress, internalizing symptoms, social media use, and online social support in May 2020, then repeated measures of internalizing symptoms in August 2020.

Neural markers of emotion regulation difficulties moderate effects of COVID-19 stressors on adolescent depression.

Background: Stressful events, such as those imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, are associated with depression risk, raising questions about processes that make some people more susceptible to the effects of stress on mental health than others. Emotion regulation may be a key process, but methods for objectively measuring emotion regulation abilities in youth are limited. We leveraged event-related potential (ERP) measures and a longitudinal study of adolescents oversampled for depression and depression risk to examine emotion regulation difficulties as prospective predictors of depressive symptoms in response to pandemic-related stress.

Longitudinal predictors of depression, anxiety, and alcohol use following COVID-19-related stress.

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed profound effects on health and daily life, with widespread stress exposure and increases in psychiatric symptoms. Despite these challenges, pandemic research provides unique insights into individual differences in emotion and cognition that predict responses to stress, with general implications for understanding stress vulnerability. We examined predictors of responses to COVID-19-related stress in an online sample of 450 emerging adults recruited in May 2020 to complete questionnaires assessing baseline stress and psychiatric symptoms, rumination, cognitive reappraisal use and intolerance of uncertainty.

Development of emotion processing and regulation: Insights from event-related potentials and implications for internalizing disorders.

Emotionally-salient stimuli receive selective attention and elicit complex neural responses that evolve considerably across development. Event-related potentials (ERPs) optimally capture the dynamics of emotion processing and regulation, with sensitivity to detect changes in magnitude, latency, and maximal location across development. In this selective qualitative review, we summarize evidence of developmental changes in neural reactivity to emotional stimuli and modulation of neural responses during emotion regulation indexed by ERPs across infancy, childhood, and adolescence.

Zoom or In-Person: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study of Time with Friends and Depressive Symptoms on Affect in Emerging Adults.

Introduction: Depression is associated with increased negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA), as well as interpersonal difficulties. Although most studies examine symptoms and affect at only one time point, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) captures data on affect and activity in real time and across contexts. The present study used EMA to explore the links between in-person and virtual social interactions, depressive symptoms, and momentary affect.

Neurophysiological Responses to Interpersonal Emotional Images: Associations with Symptoms of Depression and Social Anxiety.

Affective neuroscience research using electrocortical event-related potentials has provided valuable insights on alterations in emotion processing in internalizing disorders. However, internalizing disorders are accompanied by additional impairments in social cognition and functioning, and most extant research examines neural responses to broad categories of emotional scenes or faces presented irrespective of context. Examining neural reactivity specifically to interpersonal emotional scenes may more precisely capture and disentangle processes involved in depression and social anxiety, two highly comorbid forms of psychopathology.

Neurophysiological Responses to Interpersonal Emotional Images Prospectively Predict the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Stress on Internalizing Symptoms.

Background: Exposure to stressful events related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has been associated with increases in the prevalence of depression and anxiety, raising questions about vulnerabilities that make some individuals more susceptible to internalizing symptoms following stress exposure.

Methods: This prospective study examined the effects of neurophysiological reactivity to positive and threatening interpersonal stimuli, indexed by the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential, in conjunction with exposure to interpersonal pandemic-related stressors in the prediction of internalizing symptom changes from before to during the pandemic. Emerging adults (n= 75) initially completed measures of internalizing symptoms and an interpersonal emotional images task while an electroencephalogram was recorded pre-pandemic and were recontacted during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020 to complete measures of exposure to pandemic-related stressful events and current internalizing symptoms.

Comparison of three models of adverse childhood experiences: Associations with child and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is prevalent and confers risk for psychopathology later in life. Approaches to understanding the impact of ACEs on development include the independent risk approach, the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) distinguishing between threat and deprivation events, and the cumulative risk approach. The present research provides an empirical confirmation of DMAP and a comparison of these three approaches in predicting internalizing and externalizing symptoms in youth.

Exposure to COVID-19 pandemic stress: Associations with depression and anxiety in emerging adults in the United States.

Background: Stressful events due to the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are likely to have profound effects on mental health, and validated methods for assessing these experiences and associations with psychopathology are needed. We developed the Pandemic Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) and tested its psychometric properties, characterized experiences in emerging adults, and examined associations with internalizing symptoms.

Methods: Emerging adults (N = 450) completed the PSQ and measures of internalizing symptoms and perceived stress through an online platform in May 2020.

Predictors of placement disruptions in foster care.

Background: Many children who are removed from a dangerous or neglectful home and placed in state custody subsequently experience additional disruptions while in custody, which can compound the effects of ongoing stress and instability. As such, placement stability has been identified as a critical objective and a key indicator of success for children residing in substitutive care.

Objective: To examine the utility of child protective services data in identifying predictors of placement disruption.

Stability and change in emotional processing across development: A 6-year longitudinal investigation using event-related potentials.

ERPs reveal the temporal dynamics of emotional processing and are easily assessed in children. Yet, little longitudinal research has examined ERPs sensitive to emotion across development. We aimed to systematically identify timing and spatial distributions of ERPs sensitive to emotion in a longitudinal sample of youth (N = 62) using principal component analysis (PCA) and evaluate stability and change in emotional responses across development.