Self- and co-regulation of physiological activity during mother-daughter interactions: The role of adolescent non-suicidal self-injury.

BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant public health concern that is thought to increase risk for future self-injurious behaviors, including suicide attempts. Notably, NSSI is especially prevalent among adolescents, which underscores a critical need to identify modifiable risk factors that could be targeted to reduce future risk. The current study examined self- and co-regulation of physiological responses during mother-daughter interactions in adolescent girls with and without a history of NSSI. METHODS: Participants were 60 girls aged 13-17 with (n = 27) and without (n = 33) a history of NSSI and their mothers. Adolescents and their mothers completed positive and negative interaction tasks during which physiological reactivity was assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RESULTS: Using Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling (APIM), we found that adolescents with an NSSI history demonstrated a higher RSA setpoint than adolescents without this history during the negative, but not positive, interaction task. In addition, there were differences in co-regulation during the negatively valenced interaction, such that mothers of daughters with NSSI were more reactive to fluctuations in their daughters' RSA than mothers of daughters without an NSSI history. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight intra- and interpersonal aspects of physiological dysregulation associated with NSSI that could provide promising targets of intervention to reduce future risk in adolescent girls.

Adolescents' neural reactivity to parental criticism is associated with diminished happiness during daily interpersonal situations.

The goal of this study was to examine the relation between real-world socio-emotional measures and neural activation to parental criticism, a salient form of social threat for adolescents. This work could help us understand why heightened neural reactivity to social threat consistently emerges as a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology in youth. We predicted that youth with higher reactivity to parental criticism (vs neutral comments) in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), amygdala and anterior insula would experience (i) less happiness in daily positive interpersonal situations and (ii) more sadness and anger in daily negative interpersonal situations. Participants (44 youth aged 11-16 years with a history of anxiety) completed a 10-day ecological momentary assessment protocol and a neuroimaging task in which they listened to audio clips of their parents' criticism and neutral comments. Mixed-effects models tested associations between neural activation to critical (vs neutral) feedback and emotions in interpersonal situations. Youth who exhibited higher activation in the sgACC to parental criticism reported less happiness during daily positive interpersonal situations. No significant neural predictors of negative emotions (e.g. sadness and anger) emerged. These findings provide evidence of real-world correlates of neural reactivity to social threat that may have important clinical implications.

Peer Connectedness and Social Technology Use During COVID-19 Lockdown.

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, adolescents relied on social technology for social connection. Although some research suggests small, negative effects for quantity of social technology use on adolescent mental health, the quality of the interaction may be more important. We conducted a daily diary study in a risk-enriched sample of girls under COVID-19 lockdown to investigate associations between daily social technology use, peer closeness, and emotional health. For 10 days, 93 girls (ages 12-17) completed an online daily diary (88% compliance) assessing positive affect, symptoms of anxiety and depression, peer closeness, and daily time texting, video-chatting and using social media. Multilevel fixed effects models with Bayesian estimation were conducted. At the within-person level, more daily time texting or video-chatting with peers was associated with feeling closer to peers that day, which was associated with more positive affect and fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms that day. At the between-person level, more time video-chatting with peers across the 10 days was indirectly associated with higher average positive affect during lockdown and less depression seven-months later, via higher mean closeness with peers. Social media use was not associated with emotional health at the within- or between-person levels. Messaging and video-chatting technologies are important tools for maintaining peer connectedness during social isolation, with beneficial effects on emotional health.

Dynamics of Affective Reactivity during Mother-Daughter Interactions: The Impact of Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is an alarming public health concern that is particularly widespread among adolescents. The current study examined affective responses during mother-daughter interactions in adolescent girls with and without a history of NSSI. Participants were 60 girls aged 13-17 with (n = 27) and without (n = 33) a history of NSSI and their mothers. Adolescents and their mothers completed two interaction tasks: one positive and one negative. During these interactions, facial affect was assessed via electromyography (EMG). Results of Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling (APIM) revealed several intra- and interpersonal disruptions in affect during both tasks among dyads in which the adolescent had an NSSI history. Findings suggest deficits in both self- and co-regulation of facial affect during mother-daughter interactions involving dyads in which the adolescents reports NSSI. Ultimately, if replicated and extended in longitudinal research, these disruptions may prove to be promising targets of intervention to reduce risk for future NSSI in adolescent girls.

Attentional capture by angry faces in girls who self-injure: Evidence from steady state visual evoked potentials.

BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant public health concern, not only because of the personal and social cost of the behavior itself, but also because it increases risk for future self-injurious behaviors, including suicide attempts. NSSI is increasingly prevalent during adolescence, which highlights the need for research aimed at identifying modifiable risk factors that can be targeted to reduce future risk. Building from theoretical models that highlight interpersonal processes, this study examined whether adolescents with an NSSI history exhibit greater difficulty inhibiting attention to emotionally salient interpersonal stimuli (face), indexed via steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs), which provide a direct neural index of the ability to inhibit attention to task-irrelevant stimuli. METHODS: Adolescent girls aged 13-17 with (n = 26) and without (n = 28) an NSSI history completed a change-detection computer task during which frequency-tagged SSVEPs were used to assess adolescents' ability to inhibit attention to affectively salient stimuli from spatially superimposed targets. RESULTS: Compared with adolescents with no NSSI history, adolescents with NSSI demonstrated difficulty inhibiting attention to angry adult faces. CONCLUSIONS: These findings underscore specific deficits in attentional filtering among girls with an NSSI history, which, if replicated and extended, could be a promising intervention target for reducing risk for future NSSI.

Anxiety-related difficulties in goal-directed behavior predict worse treatment outcome among adolescents treated for suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms.

Although treatments for youth at risk for suicide have been successful, they are not similarly effective for everyone. Anxiety may interfere with adolescents' ability to engage with therapy and explain why some adolescents do not respond as well as others to treatment. The current study tested whether an anxiety diagnosis predicted treatment outcome among a sample of adolescents with suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms participating in either attachment-based family therapy or family-enhanced nondirective supportive therapy (N = 129; M age = 14.87, SD = 1.68; 81.9% female). The data set that the current study used had a high representation of Black/African American adolescents (48.8% of sample), which is valuable, as few studies have included adequate representation of this population. A significant indirect effect (.88; 95% confidence interval [.01, 2.64]) showed that across both treatment conditions, participants who met criteria for an anxiety disorder had greater difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior midtreatment, and these difficulties, in turn, predicted more posttreatment suicidal ideation. The effect of anxiety on treatment outcome via difficulties with goal-directed behavior was nonspecific to the treatment condition. However, attachment-based family therapy was superior to family-enhanced nondirective supportive therapy in improving this aspect of emotion regulation among adolescents who did not have anxiety. In addition, difficulties with goal-directed behavior on treatment outcome were worse for adolescents' who reported greater attachment avoidance to their parents. Future research should test whether targeting goal-directed behavior and attachment avoidance would result in better treatment outcome for adolescents with suicidal ideation and anxiety. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal criticism and children's neural responses to reward and loss.

Parental criticism is linked to a number of detrimental child outcomes. One mechanism by which parental criticism may increase risk for negative outcomes in children is through children's neural responses to valenced information in the environment. The goal of the current study, therefore, was to examine the relation between maternal criticism and children's neural responses to monetary gains and losses. To represent daily environmental experiences of reward and punishment, we focused on reactivity to monetary gains versus losses in a guessing task. Participants were 202 children and their mothers recruited from the community. The average age of the children was 9.71 years (SD = 1.38, range = 7-11), with 52.0% of them male and 72.8% Caucasian. Mothers completed the Five Minute Speech Sample to assess expressed emotion-criticism, and of these dyads 51 mothers were rated as highly critical. In addition, children completed a simple guessing game during which electroencephalography was recorded. Children of critical mothers displayed less neural reactivity to both monetary gain and loss than children without critical mothers. Our results were at least partially independent of children's and mothers' current levels of internalizing psychopathology. These findings suggest that children exposed to maternal criticism may exhibit disruptions in adaptive responses to environmental experiences regardless of valence. Targeted interventions aimed at reducing expressed emotion-criticism may lead to changes in a child's reward responsiveness and risk for psychopathology.

Children's history of suicidal ideation and synchrony of facial displays of affect during mother-child interactions.

BACKGROUND: Suicidal thoughts and behavior can begin early in childhood and are a leading cause of death in youth. Although specific mechanisms of risk remain largely unknown, theorists and researchers highlight the importance of the parent-child relationship. The current study focused on one aspect of this relationship: the dynamic exchange of facial affect during interactions. Specifically, we examined the relation between children's history of suicidal ideation (SI) and synchrony of facial expressions during positive and negative mother-child interactions. METHODS: Participants were 353 mother-child dyads. Of these, 44 dyads included a child with an SI history. Dyads engaged in positive and negative discussions during which their facial electromyography was recorded from mothers and children to index second-to-second changes in positive (zygomaticus) and negative (corrugator) facial affect. RESULTS: Child SI dyads were characterized specifically by reduced synchrony of positive facial affect during the positive discussion compared to dyads without child SI. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest child SI dyads exhibit reduced synchrony of normative positive expressions during mother-child interactions. If replicated and extended in longitudinal research, these results may help to explain one mechanism of risk among children with SI.

Sustained Attention and Individual Differences in Adolescents' Mood and Physiological Reactivity to Stress.

Biased attention to sad faces is associated with depression in adults and is hypothesized to increase depression risk specifically in the presence, but not absence, of stress by modulating stress reactivity. However, few studies have tested this hypothesis, and no studies have examined the relation between attentional biases and stress reactivity during adolescence, despite evidence that this developmental window is marked by changes in depression risk, stress, and the function of attention. Seeking to address these limitations, the current study examined the impact of adolescents' sustained attention to facial displays of emotion on individual differences in both mood reactivity to real-world stress and physiological (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) reactivity to a laboratory-based stressor. Consistent with vulnerability-stress models of attention, greater sustained attention to sad faces was associated with greater depressive reactions to real-world stress. In addition, there was preliminary evidence from exploratory analyses that the impact of sustained attention on mood and/or physiological reactivity may be moderated by adolescents' age and sex such that relations are stronger for older adolescents and girls. The results of this study contribute to the current body of research on the role of attention in stress reactivity and depression risk and highlight the importance of considering age differences when examining these relations.

Anhedonia and Increased Evoked Immune Response.

There is a growing body of evidence supporting the association between immune processes and psychopathology, including major depressive disorder (MDD). However, lack of diagnostic specificity has given rise to a search for specific symptom types, as opposed to more heterogeneous categorical diagnoses, linked to increased inflammation. One such symptom could be anhedonia, which is not only a key feature of MDD, but also a pervasive and persistent transdiagnostic symptom. To evaluate the specific role of anhedonia as well as categorical MDD diagnoses, we examined endotoxin-evoked immune responses in vitro in relation to current levels of anhedonia and history of recurrent MDD (rMDD) in a sample of adults recruited from the community. A total of 39 participants either had a history of rMDD (n = 20) or no lifetime history of any MDD episodes (n = 19). The average age of participants was 36.81 years and the majority were women (87.2%) and Caucasian (76.3%). We found that higher levels of current anhedonia, but not history of rMDD, were associated with increased lipopolysaccharide-stimulated levels of inflammatory markers even after we statistically controlled for the potential influence of participants' demographic (age, sex, ethnicity, income) and physiological (body temperature, BMI) characteristics, current symptoms of depression and anxiety, and the time of day of the sample collection. These findings highlight the relation of anhedonia specifically, rather than rMDD more generally, with inflammatory processes and identify endotoxin-stimulated cytokine production as a plausible biological marker of current anhedonia.

Neighborhood crime risk and resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia in middle childhood: Evidence of gender differences.

Although there is a robust link between resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a biological marker of emotion regulation, and risk for psychopathology, the factors that may be associated with aberrant RSA development remain unclear. The goal of the current study was to examine the relation between children's resting levels of RSA and neighborhood crime, a macro-level environmental stressor associated with increased risk for multiple forms of psychopathology in youth. The levels of neighborhood crime were obtained using a geocoded neighborhood crime exposure database, allowing for the objective assessment of the likelihood of crime occurring in the child's community. The results indicated that the relation between neighborhood crime and resting RSA differed for girls and boys such that living in a neighborhood with higher risk of exposure to violent crimes was associated with lower RSA for girls, but not boys. These results suggest that living in a higher crime neighborhood is associated with an objective, biologically-based marker of emotion regulation and highlight how neighborhood crime may be specifically associated with risk for girls.

Maternal major depression and synchrony of facial affect during mother-child interactions.

Maternal history of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) dramatically increases children's risk for developing depression, highlighting the critical need for further research on the specific processes involved in the intergenerational transmission of depression. Although previous research suggests that maternal depression may adversely affect the quality of mother-child interactions, less is known about the role of maternal MDD in the moment-to-moment changes in affect that occur during these interactions. The goal of this project, therefore, was to examine synchrony of facial displays of affect during a positive (Vacation Planning) and a negative (Issues Discussion) mother-child interaction, and how this synchrony may be impacted by maternal history of MDD. In doing so, we examined both concurrent and lagged synchrony of facial affect. We recruited 341 mother-child dyads (child average age = 9.30 years; 50.1% girls; 71.6% Caucasian) with and without a maternal history of MDD. Facial electromyography (EMG), continuously recorded during those tasks, was used to index mother and child facial affect. We found that a maternal history of MDD was associated with reduced concurrent synchrony and lagged synchrony (mother facial affect predicting changes in child facial affect) of positive affect during Vacation Planning. Reduced concurrent mother-child synchrony of positive affect during the discussion was also associated with an increase in child self-reported sad affect from before to after the discussion. These findings provide promising initial evidence for how the dynamic exchange of positive affect during mother-child interactions may be disrupted in families with maternal MDD history. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal criticism and non-suicidal self-injury in school-aged children.

Although non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant public health concern in youth, most of the extant research on NSSI has focused on adults and, to a lesser extent, adolescents. Therefore, little is known about the correlates and potential risk factors for NSSI in school-aged children. One factor that may be particularly important to children is their exposure to maternal criticism. Thus, the goal of this study was to examine the association between maternal expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Criticism) and NSSI in children, and to determine whether this relation is similar for girls and boys. Participants were 204 children (ages 7-11; 39.7% female, 81.9% Caucasian) and their mothers. Participants completed interviews assessing the child's history of NSSI. Mothers completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample to determine levels of EE-Criticism toward their child. We found that girls exposed to high levels of EE-Criticism were more likely to have a lifetime history of NSSI than girls of mothers exhibiting low levels of EE-Criticism; however, the relation between EE-Criticism and NSSI was not significant for boys. These results are consistent with interpersonal models of risk for NSSI, but suggest that one interpersonal factor, maternal criticism, is more strongly related to NSSI in girls than in boys.

Parental Expressed Emotion-Criticism and Neural Markers of Sustained Attention to Emotional Faces in Children.

There is growing evidence for the role of environmental influences on children's information-processing biases for affectively salient stimuli. The goal of this study was to extend this research by examining the relation between parental criticism (expressed emotion-criticism, or EE-Crit) and children's processing of facial displays of emotion. Specifically, we examined the relation between EE-Crit and children's sensitivity in detecting facial displays of emotion. We also examined a neural marker of sustained attention, the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential component (ERP). Participants were 87 children (ages 7-11 years; 53.3% female, 77.8% Caucasian) and their parents (ages 24-71; 90% female, 88.9% Caucasian). Parents completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample to determine levels of EE-Crit toward their child. Children completed a morphed faces task during which behavioral and ERP responses were assessed. Although there were no group differences in sensitivity in detecting facial displays of emotion, we found that children of parents exhibiting high, compared to low, EE-Crit displayed less attention (smaller LPP magnitudes) to all facial displays of emotion (fearful, happy, sad). These results suggest that children of critical parents may exhibit an avoidant pattern of attention to affectively-salient interpersonal stimuli.

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia in suicide attempters.

Although suicide attempts (SA) occur across a broad range of diagnoses as well as in the absence of a diagnosable disorder, most studies to date have focused on them within a single, specific disorder. Consistent with the NIMH RDoC initiative to identify biobehavioral vulnerabilities that cut across diagnoses, the goal of the present study was to examine potential differences in resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) levels in a large, diagnostically heterogeneous sample of women with and without a history of SA who were matched on a broad range of demographic and clinical variables. Participants were 112 women with (n = 56) and without (n = 56) a history of SA recruited from the community. The two groups were equated on approximate age, race, household income, and lifetime histories of psychiatric diagnoses. Resting electrocardiogram was recorded during a 2-min rest period. RSA was calculated via spectral power analyses with a fast Fourier transform. We found that women with a history of SA exhibited significantly lower resting RSA levels than women with no history of SA, and this difference was maintained even after statistically controlling for the potential influence of women's history of psychiatric diagnoses and their current symptoms of depression and anxiety. These findings suggest the presence of a link between resting RSA and SA history.

Disrupted physiological reactivity among children with a history of suicidal ideation: Moderation by parental expressed emotion-criticism.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to examine physiological reactivity during parent-child interactions in children with and without a history of suicidal ideation (SI), a group known to be at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the future. We also examined the potential moderating role of parental expressed emotion-criticism (EE-Crit) to determine whether the presence of parental criticism may help to identify a subgroup of children with a history of SI most at risk for physiological dysregulation. METHOD: Participants were 396 children (age 7-11; 54% male, 71.7% Caucasian) and their biological parent. Children's levels of high frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) were assessed during a resting baseline period followed by a positive and negative discussion with their parent. Additionally, parents completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample to determine levels of EE-Crit toward their child, and children completed an interview assessing their history of SI. RESULTS: Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that exposure to parental criticism moderated the relation between a child's history of SI and their HF-HRV reactivity to the discussions. Specifically, while most children exhibited the typical pattern of HF-HRV suppression from baseline to both interactions, the highest risk children (i.e., children with a history of SI who also had highly critical parents) did not display any change in HF-HRV across the tasks, suggesting a failure to engage a typical psychophysiological response during emotional contexts. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest a specific physiological mechanism that may place these children at risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the future.

Competition Effects in Visual Cortex Between Emotional Distractors and a Primary Task in Remitted Depression.

BACKGROUND: Attentional biases, particularly difficulty inhibiting attention to negative stimuli, are implicated in risk for major depressive disorder (MDD). The current study examined a neural measure of attentional bias using a continuous index of visuocortical engagement (steady-state visual evoked potentials [SSVEPs]) before and after a negative mood induction in a population at high-risk for MDD recurrence due to a recently remitted MDD (rMDD) episode. Additionally, we examined working memory (WM) capacity as a potential moderator of the link between rMDD and visuocortical responses. METHODS: Our sample consisted of 27 women with rMDD and 28 never-depressed women. To assess attentional inhibition to emotional stimuli, we measured frequency-tagged SSVEPs evoked from spatially superimposed task-relevant stimuli and emotional distractors (facial displays of emotion) oscillating at distinct frequencies. WM capacity was assessed during a visuospatial memory task. RESULTS: Women with rMDD, relative to never-depressed women, displayed difficulty inhibiting attention to all emotional distractors before a negative mood induction, with the strongest effect for negative distractors (sad faces). Following the mood induction, rMDD women's attention to emotional distractors remained largely unchanged. Among women with rMDD, lower WM capacity predicted greater difficulty inhibiting attention to negative and neutral distractors. CONCLUSIONS: By exploiting the phenomenon of oscillatory resonance in the visual cortex, we tracked competition in neural responses for spatially superimposed stimuli differing in valence. Results demonstrated that women with rMDD display impaired attentional inhibition of emotional distractors independent of state mood and that this bias is strongest among those with lower WM capacity.