Relations Between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Electrocortical Reward Processing in Youth at High and Low Risk for Depression.

Neighborhood-level disadvantage during childhood is a determinant of health that is hypothesized to confer risk for psychopathology via alterations in neuro-affective processing, including reward responsiveness. However, little research has examined the impact of socioeconomic disadvantage assessed at the community-level on reward processing, which may have important implications for targeted dissemination efforts. Furthermore, not all youth exposed to neighborhood disadvantage may exhibit alterations in reward reactivity, highlighting the need to consider factors that may exacerbate risk for blunted reward reactivity. The current study examined associations between geocoded indices of neighborhood disadvantage and electrocortical reward responsivity in youth and tested whether findings were moderated by maternal history of depression. The sample included 137 youth recruited for studies on the intergenerational transmission of depression. Neighborhood disadvantage was assessed using the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) while the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential, indexed reward response. Results revealed a significant interaction between ADI and maternal history of depression on youth RewP, such that greater neighborhood disadvantage was significantly associated with lower reward responsiveness, but only for youth with a maternal history of depression. Results were maintained controlling for youth internalizing symptoms and individual-level socioeconomic factors. Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may impact youth neural reward processing, at least partially independently of individual risk factors, for youth with a maternal history of depression. If replicated, results suggest intervention efforts may be implemented at the community level to enhance reward responsiveness, specifically for youth living in low-resourced neighborhoods with a maternal history of depression.

Neural reward responsiveness and daily positive affect functioning in adolescent girls.

Deficits in reward processing have been implicated in the development of many forms of psychopathology, especially major depressive disorder (MDD). One facet of reward processing, known as reward responsivity, has been associated with the development and maintenance of depression across development. The reward positivity (RewP) is an event-related potential derived from electroencephalogram (EEG), which is thought to reflect reward responsivity. An attenuated RewP has been observed in both currently depressed individuals and youth at risk for depression, suggesting it may represent a biomarker of depression. Despite this, little is known about how the RewP translates to behavior and affect in the real world. In the current study, we examined how the RewP relates to real world emotional functioning, measured using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Thirty-eight female adolescents (ages 11-16, Mage = 13.9 years) participated in the study; approximately half of the sample were considered high risk due to maternal lifetime history of MDD. Adolescents completed a monetary reward task while EEG was recorded, followed by a 10-day period of EMA assessing daily affect and emotion regulation strategy use following positive events. Results revealed that the RewP was positively associated with subjective reports of positive, but not negative, daily affect. Results also revealed that the RewP was positively associated with focusing on positive feelings following a positive event (e.g., savoring). Findings from this preliminary study highlight how neural responses to reward in the lab relate to daily life emotional functioning, supporting the RewP as an ecologically valid marker of positive affect functioning among youth.

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. Participants included 74 children ages 8-12 years and their biological mothers reporting elevated depressive symptoms. Following random assignment, 55 dyads completed FPPE (n = 29) or WI (n = 26) and pre-post assessments of child clinical symptoms. Youth completed a reinforcement learning task and 10 days of positive affect ratings to assess PVS-related targets. Results revealed a small within-subjects increase in child daily positive affect in FPPE, but not WI. Further, FPPE resulted in reductions in mother-reported child perceived stress and symptoms of anger, anxiety, and depression with medium-to-large within-subjects effects. Intervention effects on reinforcement learning and child-rated clinical symptoms were not observed. This study suggests FPPE shows promise in enhancing positive affect and reducing the emergence of clinical symptoms in HR children. CLINICALTRIALS.GOV IDENTIFIER: NCT05223842.

The interplay of childhood maltreatment and maternal depression in relation to the reward positivity in youth.

Guided by developmental psychopathology and dual-risk frameworks, the present study examined the interplay between childhood maltreatment and maternal major depression history in relation to neural reward responsiveness in youth. The sample consisted of 96 youth (ages 9-16; M = 12.29 years, SD = 2.20; 68.8% female) drawn from a large metropolitan city. Youth were recruited based on whether their mothers had a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) and were categorized into two groups: youth with mothers with a history of MDD (high risk; HR; n = 56) and youth with mothers with no history of psychiatric disorders (low risk; LR; n = 40). The reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential component, was utilized to measure reward responsiveness and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire measured childhood maltreatment. We found a significant two-way interaction between childhood maltreatment and risk group in relation to RewP. Simple slope analysis revealed that in the HR group, greater childhood maltreatment was significantly associated with reduced RewP. The relationship between childhood maltreatment and RewP was not significant among the LR youth. The present findings demonstrate that the association between childhood maltreatment and blunted reward responsiveness is dependent on whether offspring have mothers with histories of MDD.

Neural reactivity to affective stimuli and internalizing symptom dimensions in a transdiagnostic patient sample.

BACKGROUND: Internalizing psychopathologies (IPs) are highly comorbid and exhibit substantial overlap, such as aberrant affective reactivity. Neural reactivity to emotional images, measured via the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) component, has been utilized to index affective reactivity in IPs. The LPP is often examined in isolation with a specific disorder, ignoring overlap between IPs. The current study examined how transdiagnostic IP symptom dimensions relate to neural affective reactivity in a highly comorbid patient sample. METHODS: Participants (N = 99) completed a battery of IP symptom assessments as well as a target categorization task while viewing pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images during electroencephalography recording. ERPs to each image valence were averaged from 400 to 1000 ms following picture onset at pooled centroparietal and occipital electrodes to calculate the LPP. A principal components analysis performed on the IP symptom measures resulted in two factors: affective distress/misery and fear-based anxiety. RESULTS: Fear-based anxiety was associated with enhanced LPP reactivity to unpleasant, but not pleasant, images. Distress/misery was related to attenuated average LPP reactivity across images. CONCLUSIONS: Results revealed a dissociable effect of IP symptom factors in a transdiagnostic sample such that enhanced reactivity to negative images was specific to enhanced fear-based anxiety symptoms while distress/misery symptoms predicted blunted affective reactivity. Neural affective reactivity may serve as an objective biological marker to elucidate the nature of psychological concerns in individuals with comorbid IPs.

Risk for youth anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: The interactive impact of financial stress and prepandemic electrocortical reactivity to negative self-referential stimuli.

Despite evidence that stress exposure increases risk for internalizing symptoms in youth, it remains unclear which youth are most vulnerable. This study examined whether youth's prepandemic late positive potential (LPP), an electrocortical marker of sustained attention to affective stimuli, exacerbated the impact of stress on prospective increases in depression and anxiety symptoms from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 29 youth (ages 9-16, 82.8% girls) who completed depression and anxiety symptom measures and an affective words task to assess LPP to positive and negative self-referential stimuli prepandemic onset. Postpandemic onset, approximately 16.03 months (SD = 8.86) after their baseline assessments, youth again completed symptom measures as well as the UCLA Life Stress Interview to assess ongoing social and financial chronic stress. Results indicated a significant interaction between youth LPP to negative words and financial stress. Greater exposure to financial stress during the pandemic predicted greater anxiety symptom increases specifically for youth who demonstrated enhanced prepandemic LPP to negative words. Results were specific to the prediction of anxiety, but not depression, symptoms. If replicated in larger studies, findings highlight enhanced LPP to negative stimuli as a promising target for intervention for youth exposed to greater financial stress.

Maternal Error-Related Negativity Relationship With Offspring Error-Related Negativity and Negative Parenting Styles: A Novel Model of Internalizing Psychopathology Risk.

BACKGROUND: Enhanced error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential component reflecting neural sensitivity to errors and threat, has been theorized to represent an endophenotype of internalizing psychopathologies (IPs). We tested whether intergenerational transmission of ERN patterns may confer risk for internalizing symptoms. We examined associations among maternal and offspring ERN and offspring internalizing symptoms. Given the role of parenting in IP risk, we also explored how maternal negative parenting styles related to maternal ERN and offspring internalizing symptoms. METHODS: Participants included 117 biological mother-child dyads (ages 9-16 years, 70.9% female). Of these, 72 mothers had a history of major depression (32 with lifetime anxiety), and 45 had no history of psychiatric illness. Dyads completed psychiatric interviews, parenting questionnaires, and a flanker task to elicit the ERN while an electroencephalogram was recorded. RESULTS: Path analyses revealed that maternal ERN was significantly associated with enhanced offspring ERN and greater negative parenting styles. Enhanced offspring ERN and maternal negative parenting styles were significantly related to greater internalizing symptoms in offspring. Maternal ERN had a significant indirect effect on offspring internalizing symptoms through offspring ERN and maternal negative parenting styles, above the effects of self-reported maternal internalizing symptoms. Maternal IP history did not moderate pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings suggest that enhanced maternal ERN is indirectly associated with greater offspring internalizing symptoms through its relationship to offspring ERN and negative parenting styles. Future longitudinal work is needed to evaluate the temporal timing and directionality of these tested pathways and their clinical implications for the prevention of IPs.

The interplay of stress and electrocortical reactivity to reward in the prospective prediction of depression symptoms during COVID-19.

Rates of depression have increased during the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, potentially due to associated stress exposure. However, it remains unclear which individuals are most susceptible. Electrocortical markers of reward processing, such as the reward positivity (RewP), are implicated in depression risk and may provide insights into who is most vulnerable to stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study examined whether pre-pandemic neural correlates of reward reactivity (i.e., RewP) moderated the impact of social and financial stress on changes in youth and mother depression symptoms pre-to-post pandemic onset. Youth (n = 45) and mothers (n = 45) in the current sample were recruited prior to the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a larger study. RewP was assessed pre-pandemic, and depression symptoms were assessed pre- and post-pandemic onset for both youth and mothers. Additionally, social and financial chronic stress severity was assessed post-pandemic onset using a modified version of the UCLA Life Stress Interview. Financial stress was associated with prospective increases in depression for youth exhibiting blunted RewP at baseline. Similarly, family stress was associated with prospective increases in depression symptoms for mothers exhibiting blunted RewP at baseline. Findings suggest reduced reward responsiveness at the neural level may predispose both youth and mothers to future depression symptoms when exposed to higher levels of stress in the context of a pandemic.

Humor and emotion: Quantitative meta analyses of functional neuroimaging studies.

Humor is a ubiquitous aspect of human behavior that is infrequently the focus of neuroscience research. To localize human brain structures associated with the experience of humor, we conducted quantitative activation likelihood estimate (ALE) meta analyses of 57 fMRI studies (n = 1248) reporting enhanced regional brain activity evoked by humorous cues versus matched control cues. We performed separate ALE analyses of studies that employed picture-driven, text-based, and auditory laughter cues to evoke humor. A primary finding was that complex humor activates supramodal areas of the brain strongly associated with emotional processes, including bilateral amygdala and inferior frontal gyrus. Moreover, activation in brain regions associated with language, semantic knowledge, and theory of mind were differentially modulated by text and picture-driven humor cues, while hearing laughter enhances activation in auditory association cortex. The identification of humor-driven brain networks has the potential to expand brain-derived models of human emotion and could provide useful targets in translational research and therapy.

The moderating role of externalizing problems on the association between anxiety and the error-related negativity in youth.

The error-related negativity (ERN) is an event-related potential that reflects error monitoring. Enhanced ERN indicates sensitivity to performance errors and is a correlate of anxiety disorders. In contrast, youth with externalizing problems exhibit a reduced ERN, suggesting decreased error monitoring. Anxiety and externalizing problems commonly co-occur in youth, but no studies have tested how comorbidity might modulate the ERN. In a sample of youth (N = 46, ages 7-19) with and without anxiety disorders, this preliminary study examined the interactive effect of anxiety and externalizing problems on ERN. Results suggest that externalizing problems moderate the relation between anxiety symptoms and ERN in youth. Anxious youth with less externalizing problems exhibited enhanced ERN response to errors. Conversely, anxious youth with greater externalizing problems demonstrated diminished ERN in response to errors. The regions of significance and proportion affected tests indicated that the moderating the effect of externalizing problems was only significant for youth with anxiety disorders. Findings suggest that enhanced neural error sensitivity could be a specific neurophysiological marker for anxiety disorders, whereas anxious individuals with comorbid externalizing problems demonstrate reduced error monitoring, similar to those with primary externalizing pathology. Results underscore the utility of examining neural correlates of pediatric anxiety comorbidity subtypes.

Recall accuracy for the symptoms of a major depressive episode among clinical trial participants.

For patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), approaches to treatment differ for those with a single versus recurrent episodes. Based on studies of community samples, however, accuracy is low for identifying past episodes. Recall accuracy among clinical samples with a well-defined major depressive episode (MDE) has not been examined previously. We evaluated episode recall accuracy in 79 MDD patients in follow-up of the Predictors of Remission in Depression to Individual and Combined Treatments (PReDICT) study at 12- and 24-month time-points after starting treatment. Using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, patients were asked to recall whether they had been experiencing the nine criterion symptoms of an MDE at the time of their intake assessment. Accuracy of recall for the index MDE was high, with 95% of patients at month 12 and 85% at month 24 recalling sufficient symptoms to meet the diagnostic criteria. Recall accuracy for specific symptoms varied considerably, from >90% for dysphoria and anhedonia, to 55% for psychomotor and weight/appetite changes. For the thoughts of death/suicide criterion, patients with erroneous recall were significantly more likely to recall having had the symptom at the intake evaluation (though they had denied it at the time) than vice versa (p < .007). Patients who have participated in a clinical trial are likely to recall accurately a past MDE up to two years prior. Optimal vigilance for suicidal ideation for treatment-naïve patients should include a combination of self-report and clinician assessments.