Examining hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis genetic variation on cortisol and alpha-amylase reactivity during an explicit negative-evaluative stress induction.

Prior work consistently links additive genetic variation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis-a multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS)-to depression risk in the context of stress exposure. However, despite that HPA MGPS variants were selected based on evidence that they elevate cortisol reactivity, there are surprisingly few tests of whether an HPA MGPS elevates cortisol reactivity to lab-based stress. Similarly, despite neurobiological connections and coordination between the HPA axis and the sympathetic nervous system (e.

Putting it into words: Emotion vocabulary, emotion differentiation, and depression among adolescents.

Emotion differentiation (ED; the ability to distinguish discrete internal emotion states) may reflect or benefit from knowledge of linguistic labels. The present study uses natural language processing to examine how emotion vocabulary (EV; diversity of unique emotion terms within active vocabulary) relates to ED and depression in an adolescent sample. We tested two competing preregistered (https://osf.

Intolerance of uncertainty as a predictor of anxiety severity and trajectory during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Efforts to identify risk and resilience factors for anxiety severity and course during the COVID-19 pandemic have focused primarily on demographic rather than psychological variables. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a transdiagnostic risk factor for anxiety, may be a particularly relevant vulnerability factor.

Method: N = 641 adults with pre-pandemic anxiety data reported their anxiety, IU, and other pandemic and mental health-related variables at least once and up to four times during the COVID-19 pandemic, with assessments beginning in May 2020 through March 2021.

Characterizing Life Stress Exposure Among Sexual Minority Adolescents: Temporality, Content, And Mediating Role in Mental Health Disparities.

Though sexual minority adolescents face a wide array of deleterious stressors, few studies have examined the role of specific types of stress exposure (i.e., chronic vs.

Everyday emotion, naturalistic life stress, and the prospective prediction of adolescent depression.

Background And Objectives: Increasing research underscores low positive emotion (PE) as a vital component of depression risk in adolescence. Theory also suggests that PE contributes to adaptive coping. However, it is unclear whether naturalistic experiences of emotions contribute to long-term depression risk, or whether daily PE levels equip adolescents to cope with later naturalistic stressors, reducing risk for depression.

Patterns of life stress and the development of ruminative brooding in adolescence: A person-centered approach.

Research links life stressors, including acute, chronic, and early life stress, to the development of ruminative brooding. However, singular forms of life stress rarely occur in isolation, as adolescents typically encounter stressors that vary on important dimensions (e.g.

Negative emotion differentiation in trauma-exposed community members: Associations with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in daily life.

The ability to make fine-grained distinctions between discrete negative emotions-termed negative emotion differentiation (NED)-is important for emotion regulation and psychological well-being. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with elevated trauma-related negative emotions (e.g.

Risk and protective factors for stress generation: A meta-analytic review.

The stress generation hypothesis suggests that some individuals contribute more than others to the occurrence of dependent (self-generated), but not independent (fateful), stressful life events. This phenomenon is commonly studied in relation to psychiatric disorders, but effects are also driven by underlying psychological processes that extend beyond the boundaries of DSM-defined entities. This meta-analytic review of modifiable risk and protective factors for stress generation synthesizes findings from 70 studies with 39,693 participants (483 total effect sizes) from over 30 years of research.

The vicious cycle of psychopathology and stressful life events: A meta-analytic review testing the stress generation model.

Stress generation theory initially posited that depression elevates risk for some stressful events (i.e., dependent events) but not others (i.

Multiple Indicators of Undernutrition, Infection, and Inflammation in Lactating Women Are Associated with Maternal Iron Status and Infant Anthropometry in Panama: The MINDI Cohort.

Maternal infections, nutrient deficiencies, and inflammation (MINDI) co-exist in lactating indigenous women in Panama, but their impact on maternal iron status and infant growth is unknown. For this secondary analysis of cross-sectional data of lactating mothers from our MINDI cohort, we investigated associations of MINDI variables with maternal anemia, elevated serum transferrin receptor (sTfR), low serum iron, hepcidin, ferritin, and infant weight-for-age (WAZ), length-for-age (LAZ), and head-circumference-for-age (HCAZ) Z-scores in 99 mother-infant dyads. A bootstrapping resampling procedure preselected covariates for inclusion in multivariable regressions models from chronic maternal infections and nutritional status [folate, vitamins A, D, retinol-binding protein (RBP), insulin-growth factor-1 (IGF-1)] and inflammation [C-reactive protein (CRP), cytokines, platelet indices] indicators.

Distinguishing Transdiagnostic versus Disorder-Specific Pathways between Ruminative Brooding and Internalizing Psychopathology in Adolescents: A Latent Variable Modeling Approach.

Rumination is correlated with diverse types of internalizing problems, but the extent to which it relates to a higher-order internalizing spectrum versus disorder-specific pathology is unclear. Using a quantitative model of the internalizing dimension, we compared the strength of transdiagnostic versus diagnosis-specific pathways from brooding-the most depressogenic component of rumination-to major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents. Community-recruited mid-adolescents (N = 241, M = 15.

INTERGROWTH-21 Identifies High Prevalence of Low Symphysis-Fundal Height in Indigenous Pregnant Women Experiencing Multiple Infections, Nutrient Deficiencies, and Inflammation: The Maternal Infections, Nutrient Deficiencies, and Inflammation (MINDI) Cohort.

Background: In the absence of ultrasound, symphysis-fundal height (SFH) can assess maternal-fetal well-being as it is associated with gestational age, fetal weight, and amniotic fluid volume. However, other modifiers of SFH, including maternal infections, nutrient deficiencies, and inflammation (MINDI), have not been widely explored.

Objectives: Our objectives were 2-fold: ) to assess prevalence of low SFH in indigenous Panamanian women using both Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) and INTERGROWTH-21 standards and ) to explore associations of SFH with maternal health indicators: infections (oral, skin, urogenital, nematode infections), nutrient deficiencies [protein and iron indicators (ferritin, serum iron, serum transferrin receptor, hepcidin), folate, and vitamins A, D, and B-12], and inflammation [leukocytes, C-reactive protein (CRP), cytokines].

Negative Emotion Differentiation through a Developmental Lens: Associations with Parental Factors and Age in Adolescence.

Negative emotion differentiation (NED) is the ability to precisely discern negatively-valenced emotional states. Low NED has been linked to numerous negative outcomes. However, little is known about the conditions under which individual differences in NED emerge, particularly during adolescence, a potentially important developmental stage.

Nodal is required to maintain the uterine environment in an anti-inflammatory state during pregnancy†.

Preterm birth remains the major cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity worldwide, affecting up to 12% of pregnancies and accounting for ~75% of neonatal deaths. However, the mechanisms and causes that underlie it are still largely unknown. One of the major causes of preterm birth is infection or inflammation within the maternal-fetal interface.

The developmental origins of ruminative response style: An integrative review.

Rumination has been conceptualized as a stable, trait-level response style involving repetitive and passive focus on the symptoms of distress and the possible causes and consequences of those symptoms. This theoretical review examines developmental risk factors of ruminative response style, incorporating a developmental psychopathology perspective. A model integrating these developmental factors within a conceptual framework is proposed, wherein risk factors for distress (i.

Interpersonal childhood adversity and stress generation in adolescence: Moderation by HPA axis multilocus genetic variation.

Research suggests that childhood adversity (CA) is associated with a wide range of repercussions, including an increased likelihood of interpersonal stress generation. This may be particularly true following interpersonal childhood adversity (ICA) and for youth with high hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis-related genetic risk. In the current study, we applied a multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) approach to measuring HPA axis-related genetic variation and examined its interaction with ICA to predict interpersonal stress generation in a sample of adolescents aged 14-17 (N = 241, Caucasian subsample n = 192).

Serotonergic multilocus genetic variation moderates the association between major interpersonal stress and adolescent depressive symptoms: Replication and candidate environment specification.

Serotonin-linked genetic risk and stressful life event (SLE) interaction research has been criticized for using single genetic variants with inconsistent replicability. A recent study showed that a multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) capturing additive risk from five serotonin-linked polymorphisms moderated the association between major interpersonal SLEs and depression, but no subsequent replication attempts have been reported. Moreover, major interpersonal SLEs have been suggested as "candidate environments" for this MGPS, but it has never been demonstrated that gene-environment interactions (G × Es) for major interpersonal SLEs are significantly stronger than for other contexts.

The perils of murky emotions: Emotion differentiation moderates the prospective relationship between naturalistic stress exposure and adolescent depression.

Negative emotion differentiation (NED) refers to the ability to identify and label discrete negative emotions. Low NED has been previously linked to depression and other indices of low psychological well-being. However, this construct has rarely been explored during adolescence, a time of escalating depression risk, or examined in the context of naturalistic stressors.

Oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) links to marital quality via social support behavior and perceived partner responsiveness.

Research exploring the mechanisms by which specific genes contribute to overall marital quality is still in its beginning stages; however, one mechanism may be the link between the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and behavioral deficits relevant to social support-a critical determinant of marital quality. Using 79 different-sex married couples (N = 158), we found that genotypic variation in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on wives' and husbands' OXTR variously associated with husbands' and wives' support provision and receipt behaviors in social support discussions. We also found significant indirect effects of husbands' TT genotype for OXTR SNP rs1042778 on lower marital quality for husbands and wives by way of the husband's more negative evaluation of his wife's responsiveness when he was the target for support.

HPA-axis multilocus genetic variation moderates associations between environmental stress and depressive symptoms among adolescents.

Research suggests that genetic variants linked to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis functioning moderate the association between environmental stressors and depression, but examining gene-environment interactions with single polymorphisms limits power. The current study used a multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) approach to measuring HPA-axis-related genetic variation and examined interactions with acute stress, chronic stress, and childhood adversity (assessed using contextual threat interview methods) with depressive symptoms as outcomes in an adolescent sample (ages 14-17, N = 241; White subsample n = 192). Additive MGPSs were calculated using 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms within HPA-axis genes (CRHR1, NR3C2, NR3C1, FKBP5).