Longitudinal associations between changes in peer victimization and emotion dysregulation across adolescence.

Emotion dysregulation emerges from an interaction between individual factors and environmental factors. Changes in biological, cognitive, and social systems that characterize adolescence create a complex array of environmental factors contributing to emotion dysregulation during this developmental period. In particular, peer victimization (PV) has long-term consequences for emotion dysregulation. Yet, previous research has also indicated that emotion dysregulation can be both an antecedent to and outcome of PV. The present study evaluated reciprocal associations between longitudinal changes within repeated measures of PV and emotion dysregulation across adolescence and into young adulthood. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% male, Mage = 14.07 years at Time 1) who participated in a longitudinal study across five time points, with approximately 1 year between each assessment. Latent change score modeling was used to examine reciprocal associations between PV and emotion dysregulation. Results emphasize bidirectional associations between PV and emotion dysregulation. Consistent with social information processing theory, greater emotion dysregulation predicted greater relational and overt victimization over time. Moreover, higher overt victimization predicted increases in emotion dysregulation. Our results offer insights toward developmentally informed longitudinal, transactional models linking negative social environments, and emotion dysregulation development across adolescence and into young adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Longitudinal Associations Among Socioeconomic Status, Delay Discounting, and Substance Use in Adolescence.

It is unclear how delay discounting and substance use develop across adolescence and whether contextual factors alter their trajectories. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine whether socioeconomic status is related to developmental trajectories of delay discounting and substance use across adolescence. The sample included 167 adolescents (Mage = 14 at Time 1; 53% male) and their parents who participated annually across four years. Parents reported SES at Time 1 and adolescents completed delay discounting behavioral assessments and substance use questionnaires at Times 1 to 4. Bivariate latent growth curve modeling revealed that low SES was related to steeper increases in substance use from age 14 through 17, mediated through elevated delay discounting at age 14. The findings clarify the mediating role of delay discounting in linking family economic environment to the progression of substance use.

Family socioeconomic status and adolescent substance use: The role of parent-adolescent brain similarity and parental monitoring.

Greater neural similarity between parents and adolescents may reduce adolescent substance use. Among 70 parent-adolescent dyads, we tested a longitudinal path model in which family economic environment is related to adolescent substance use, directly and indirectly through parent-adolescent neural similarity and parental monitoring. Neural similarity was measured as parent-adolescent pattern similarity in functional brain connectivity at Time 1. Parents reported socioeconomic status and parental monitoring at Time 1. Adolescents reported parental monitoring at Time 1 and substance use at Time 2. Higher family socioeconomic status was associated with greater neural similarity. Greater neural similarity was associated with lower adolescent substance use, mediated through greater adolescent-perceived parental monitoring. Parent-adolescent neural similarity may attenuate adolescent substance use by bolstering parental monitoring. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychopathology as long-term sequelae of maltreatment and socioeconomic disadvantage: Neurocognitive development perspectives.

Neuroscience research underscores the critical impact of adverse experiences on brain development. Yet, there is limited understanding of the specific pathways linking adverse experiences to accelerated or delayed brain development and their ultimate contributions to psychopathology. Here, we present new longitudinal data demonstrating that neurocognitive functioning during adolescence, as affected by adverse experiences, predicts psychopathology during young adulthood. The sample included 167 participants (52% male) assessed in adolescence and young adulthood. Adverse experiences were measured by early maltreatment experiences and low family socioeconomic status. Cognitive control was assessed by neural activation and behavioral performance during the Multi-Source Interference Task. Psychopathology was measured by self-reported internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Results indicated that higher maltreatment predicted heightened frontoparietal activation during cognitive control, indicating delayed neurodevelopment, which, in turn predicted higher internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Furthermore, higher maltreatment predicted a steeper decline in frontoparietal activation across adolescence, indicating neural plasticity in cognitive control-related brain development, which was associated with lower internalizing symptomatology. Our results elucidate the crucial role of neurocognitive development in the processes linking adverse experiences and psychopathology. Implications of the findings and directions for future research on the effects of adverse experiences on brain development are discussed.

Latent profiles of regulatory flexibility in alcohol use disorder: Associations with delay discounting and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

BACKGROUND: Regulatory flexibility (RF) involves three distinct components of self-regulation: context sensitivity, repertoire, and feedback responsiveness. Subgroups based on differences in RF have been identified in a general sample and are differentially associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, potential RF profiles have not been examined in individuals with substance use disorders. This study examined RF subtypes in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and their associations with psychosocial outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) and delay discounting (a core feature of addiction). METHODS: Individuals (n = 200) with an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score of >16 (mean = 24.12 (±6.92)) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (mean = 37.26 years old (±11.41); 94 (47%) women). Participants completed the Context Sensitivity Index, the Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression Scale, and the Coping Flexibility Scale to assess RF. Participants also completed an Adjusting Amount Delay Discounting Task and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Latent profile analyses (LPA) were used to identify patterns in RF deficits. Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn's tests were performed to examine differences in discounting rates and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress across RF profiles. RESULTS: The LPA revealed a 2-profile characterization, including (1) context sensitive regulators (CSR; n = 39) and (2) moderate flexibility regulators (MFR; n = 161). CSR demonstrated significantly lower symptoms of depression (p = 0.004), anxiety (p < 0.001), and stress (p < 0.001) than MFR. CSR also displayed significantly lower AUDIT scores (p = 0.031). CONCLUSIONS: Findings illustrate that among individuals with moderate-severe AUD, those high in context sensitivity coupled with moderate abilities in repertoire and feedback responsiveness have fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Together, context sensitivity may be an important and protective component of RF among individuals with AUD.

Longitudinal associations between dimensions of maltreatment and internalizing symptoms in late adolescence: The role of inflammation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Childhood adversity and depression have been linked with heightened inflammation. However, few longitudinal studies examine how dimensions of maltreatment (i.e., abuse and neglect) differentially impact pathways to heightened inflammation and internalizing symptoms. The present study examined effects of abuse and neglect on (1) internalizing symptoms through inflammation, and (2) on inflammation through internalizing symptoms across 3 years of adolescence in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a sample of 78 adolescents, significant indirect effects revealed that childhood abuse, not neglect, significantly predicted future internalizing symptoms, which predicted future heighted C-reactive protein (CRP). Using prospective longitudinal data, these findings emphasize the importance of examining distinct forms of maltreatment in understanding the developmental pathways connecting early adversity, internalizing symptoms, and inflammation.

Brain Similarity as a Protective Factor in the Longitudinal Pathway Linking Household Chaos, Parenting, and Substance Use.

BACKGROUND: Socioecological factors such as family environment and parenting behaviors contribute to the development of substance use. While biobehavioral synchrony has been suggested as the foundation for resilience that can modulate environmental effects on development, the role of brain similarity that attenuates deleterious effects of environmental contexts has not been clearly understood. We tested whether parent-adolescent neural similarity-the level of pattern similarity between parent-adolescent functional brain connectivity representing the level of attunement within each dyad-moderates the longitudinal pathways in which household chaos (a stressor) predicts adolescent substance use directly and indirectly via parental monitoring. METHODS: In a sample of 70 parent-adolescent dyads, similarity in resting-state brain activity was identified using multipattern connectivity similarity estimation. Adolescents and parents reported on household chaos and parental monitoring, and adolescent substance use was assessed at a 1-year follow-up. RESULTS: The moderated mediation model indicated that for adolescents with low neural similarity, but not high neural similarity, greater household chaos predicted higher substance use over time directly and indirectly via lower parental monitoring. Our data also indicated differential susceptibility in the overall association between household chaos and substance use: Adolescents with low neural similarity exhibited high substance use under high household chaos but low substance use under low household chaos. CONCLUSIONS: Neural similarity acts as a protective factor such that the detrimental effects of suboptimal family environment and parenting behaviors on the development of adolescent health risk behaviors may be attenuated by neural similarity within parent-adolescent bonds.

Risk-related brain activation is linked to longitudinal changes in adolescent health risk behaviors.

Middle adolescence is the period of development during which youth begin to engage in health risk behaviors such as delinquent behavior and substance use. A promising mechanism for guiding adolescents away from risky choices is the extent to which adolescents are sensitive to the likelihood of receiving valued outcomes. Few studies have examined longitudinal change in adolescent risky decision making and its neural correlates. To this end, the present longitudinal three-wave study (Nw1 = 157, Mw1= 13.50 years; Nw2 = 148, Mw2= 14.52 years; Nw3 = 143, Mw3= 15.55 years) investigated the ontogeny of mid-adolescent behavioral and neural risk sensitivity, and their baseline relations to longitudinal self-reported health risk behaviors. Results showed that adolescents became more sensitive to risk both in behavior and the brain during middle adolescence. Across three years, we observed lower risk-taking and greater risk-related activation in the bilateral insular cortex. When examining how baseline levels of risk sensitivity were related to longitudinal changes in real-life health risk behaviors, we found that Wave 1 insular activity was related to increases in self-reported health risk behaviors over the three years. This research highlights the normative maturation of risk-related processes at the behavioral and neural levels during mid-adolescence.

Longitudinal Associations Between Peer Victimization and Positive and Negative Social Risk Taking in Adolescence and Young Adulthood.

Adolescence is characterized by heightened risk taking, along with salient peer relationships. This study leveraged data from 167 adolescents across five years (M(SD)age = 15.05 (0.54) years at Time 1; 47% female) to examine how risk perception and peer victimization in adolescence interrelate and predict risk likelihood in young adulthood. Bivariate growth curve modeling revealed that higher initial levels of positive social risk perception predicted a slower decrease in relational victimization throughout adolescence. Higher initial levels of relational victimization in adolescence predicted higher negative social risk likelihood in young adulthood. Adolescents with heightened risk sensitivity to positive social risks may be vulnerable to relational victimization, and prevention efforts to reduce relational victimization may protect adolescents from future negative risk taking.

Parenting, emotion regulation, and externalizing symptomatology as adolescent antecedents to young adult health risk behaviors.

This study used longitudinal data to elucidate how trajectories of negative parenting across adolescence are associated with young adult health risk behaviors (HRBs) by testing difficulties with emotion regulation and externalizing symptomatology as sequential underlying mediators. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males, Mage  = 14 at Time 1 and Mage  = 18 at Time 5) who were assessed five times. Adolescents self-reported on negative parenting, emotion regulation, externalizing symptomatology, and engagement in HRBs. Results suggest that increasingly negative parenting across adolescence has adverse consequences for emotion regulation development and in turn, externalizing symptomatology, which confers risk for young adult HRBs. Results offer insights towards mechanisms for prevention and intervention and public health policy aimed at reducing the prevalence and consequences of engagement in HRBs.

Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Late Childhood Frontal EEG Asymmetry, Executive Function, and Adolescent Cognitive Reappraisal.

Cognitive reappraisal is adaptive for decreasing symptoms of depression; however, a gap in the research is understanding the childhood processes that contribute to cognitive reappraisal in adolescence. This study examined executive function and frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry during late childhood as predictors of adolescent cognitive reappraisal and depressive symptoms. Data were from 123 participants in late childhood (age 10) and adolescence (age 14.5). A moderated mediation model was fit to the data to examine frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator in the relation between late childhood inhibitory control and adolescent cognitive reappraisal as well as adolescent cognitive reappraisal and adolescent depressive symptoms. Results indicated lower inhibitory control was associated with lower cognitive reappraisal when children had right frontal EEG asymmetry. Lower cognitive reappraisal in turn was associated with higher depressive symptoms for children with right frontal EEG asymmetry. Working memory and cognitive flexibility were also examined but were not significant indicators. Results suggest the potential for targeting inhibitory control and cognitive reappraisal to diminish depressive symptoms particularly among adolescents with right frontal EEG asymmetry.

Differential Associations of Adversity Profiles with Adolescent Cognitive Control and Psychopathology.

Adverse childhood experiences are common and have long-term consequences for biological and psychosocial adjustment. We used a person-centered approach to characterize distinct profiles of adversity in early adolescence and examined associations with later cognitive control and psychopathology. The sample included 167 adolescents (47% female) and their primary caregivers who participated in a longitudinal study across four time points (approximately one year between assessments). At Time 1 (Mage = 14 years), we measured seven indicators of adversity: socioeconomic disadvantage, abuse, neglect, household chaos, parent substance use, parent depression, and negative life events. At Times 2-4, adolescents' behavioral performance and functional activation during a cognitive control task were measured. At Time 5, adolescents and their caregiver reported on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four distinct adversity subgroups: a low exposure group, a neglect group, a household instability group, and a poly-adversity group. These groups significantly differed on subsequent levels of psychopathology, but not cognitive control. Specifically, the poly-adversity group reported significantly higher levels of both internalizing and externalizing symptomatology relative to the low exposure group, and the household instability group demonstrated elevated risk for externalizing symptomatology. When using a cumulative risk approach, higher levels of adversity exposure were associated with significantly worse cognitive control performance (but not neural activation). These results suggest that psychopathology outcomes may be differentially predicted by distinct patterns of risk, and that cognitive control impairment may be more strongly predicted by cumulative risk.

Development of cognitive control during adolescence: The integrative effects of family socioeconomic status and parenting behaviors.

Cognitive control is of great interest to researchers and practitioners. The concurrent association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent cognitive control is well-documented. However, little is known about whether and how SES relates to individual differences in the development of adolescent cognitive control. The current four-year longitudinal investigation (N = 167, 13-14 years at Wave 1) used multi-source interference task performance (reaction time in interference correct trials minus neutral correct trials) and corresponding neural activities (blood oxygen level dependent contrast of interference versus neutral conditions) as measures of cognitive control. SES and parenting behaviors (warmth, monitoring) were measured through surveys. We examined direct and indirect effects of earlier SES on the development of cognitive control via parenting behaviors; the moderating effect of parenting also was explored. Results of latent growth modeling (LGM) revealed significant interactive effects between SES and parenting predicting behavioral and neural measures of cognitive control. Lower family SES was associated with poorer cognitive performance when coupled with low parental warmth. In contrast, higher family SES was associated with greater improvement in performance, as well as a higher intercept and steeper decrease in frontoparietal activation over time, when coupled with high parental monitoring. These findings extend prior cross-sectional evidence to show the moderating effect of the parenting environment on the potential effects of SES on developmental changes in adolescent cognitive control.

Longitudinal Associations between Social Relationships and Alcohol Use from Adolescence into Young Adulthood: The Role of Religiousness.

As adolescence is a time characterized by rapid changes in social relationships as well as an increase in risk-taking behaviors, this prospective longitudinal study examined whether social involvement and social alienation are associated with changes in alcohol use from adolescence into young adulthood moderated by organizational and personal religiousness. Participants were 167 adolescents (53% male) assessed five times between ages 14 and 18 years old. Latent change score modeling analyses indicated that social alienation was positively associated with greater increases in alcohol use among those with low organizational religiousness and those with low personal religiousness in early adolescence and during the transition into young adulthood. The findings demonstrate the detrimental effects of social relationship risk factors that promote alcohol use during adolescence into young adulthood. The results further highlight the protective roles of organizational and personal religiousness acting as additional sources of social engagement experiences to modulate the effects of social alienation predicting alcohol use progression and provide evidence for the positive impact religiousness has on healthy adolescent development.

Neural cognitive control moderates the longitudinal link between hedonia and substance use across adolescence.

Hedonic dysregulation is evident in addiction and substance use disorders, but it is not clearly understood how hedonic processes may interact with brain development related to cognitive control to influence risky decision making and substance use during adolescence. The present study used prospective longitudinal data to clarify the role of cognitive control in the link between hedonic experiences and the development of substance use during adolescence. Participants included 167 adolescents (53% male) assessed at four time points, annually. Adolescents participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session where blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response was monitored during the Multi-Source- Interference Task to assess cognitive control. Substance use and hedonia were assessed using self-report. A two-group growth curve model of substance use with hedonia as a time-varying covariate indicated that higher levels of hedonia predicted higher substance use, but only in adolescents with higher activation in the frontoparietal regions and in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex during cognitive control. Results elucidate the moderating effects of neural cognitive control on associations between hedonia and adolescent substance use, suggesting that lower cognitive control functioning in the brain may exacerbate risk for substance use promoted by hedonia.

Transactional relations between developmental trajectories of executive functioning and internalizing and externalizing symptomatology in adolescence.

Adolescence is a period of social, physical, and neurobiological transitions that may leave individuals more vulnerable to the development of internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Extant research demonstrates that executive functioning (EF) is associated with psychopathology outcomes in adolescence; however, it has yet to be examined how EF and psychopathology develop transactionally over time. Data were collected from 167 adolescents (47% female, 13-14 years old at Time 1) and their primary caregiver over 4 years. At each time point, adolescents completed three behavioral tasks that capture the underlying dimensions of EF, and both adolescents and their primary caregiver completed measures of adolescent psychopathology. Latent growth curve modeling was used to test the associations between initial levels and trajectories of EF and psychopathology. Results indicated that higher initial levels of internalizing and externalizing symptomatology were associated with lower EF at Time 4 (controlling for Time 1 EF). Initial levels of EF did not predict changes in internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. These findings suggest that early psychopathology may be a risk factor for maladaptive EF development in adolescence.

Associations between developmental patterns of negative parenting and emotion regulation development across adolescence.

Research has documented changes in parenting practices and in emotion regulation (ER) during adolescence. However, developmental trajectories of these constructs and how they may be linked are not clearly known. The present study examined longitudinal associations between developmental trajectories of negative parenting and developmental trajectories of ER (e.g., abilities and strategy use, including cognitive reappraisal and suppression). The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males) who were first recruited at age 13 or 14 years and assessed annually four times. Adolescents self-reported on the perceived degree of their parent's negative parenting and ER. Growth mixture modeling revealed two distinct trajectories of negative parenting across adolescence: Class 1 contained the majority of adolescents (84%), with moderate initial levels of negative parenting that decreased across adolescence; Class 2 contained a smaller group of adolescents (16%), reporting moderate initial levels of negative parenting that increased across adolescence. Though growth curve modeling did not reveal significant growth in ER across time in the sample as a whole, results from a two-group model demonstrated that ER development significantly differs depending on adolescents' experiences of negative parenting trajectories. Adolescents experiencing decreases in negative parenting showed significant increases in ER abilities and no significant changes in suppression. Adolescents experiencing increases in negative parenting exhibited significant decreases in ER abilities. Adolescent's cognitive reappraisal was unaffected by negative parenting. The findings underscore the significant role of differential parenting environments in the development of ER abilities during adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A 4-year longitudinal neuroimaging study of cognitive control using latent growth modeling: developmental changes and brain-behavior associations.

Despite theoretical models suggesting developmental changes in neural substrates of cognitive control in adolescence, empirical research has rarely examined intraindividual changes in cognitive control-related brain activation using multi-wave multivariate longitudinal data. We used longitudinal repeated measures of brain activation and behavioral performance during the multi-source interference task (MSIT) from 167 adolescents (53% male) who were assessed annually over four years from ages 13 to 17 years. We applied latent growth modeling to delineate the pattern of brain activation changes over time and to examine longitudinal associations between brain activation and behavioral performance. We identified brain regions that showed differential change patterns: (1) the fronto-parietal regions that involved bilateral insula, bilateral middle frontal gyrus, left pre-supplementary motor area, left inferior parietal lobule, and right precuneus; and (2) the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) region. Longitudinal confirmatory factor analyses of the fronto-parietal regions revealed strong measurement invariance across time implying that multivariate functional magnetic resonance imaging data during cognitive control can be measured reliably over time. Latent basis growth models indicated that fronto-parietal activation decreased over time, whereas rACC activation increased over time. In addition, behavioral performance data, age-related improvement was indicated by a decreasing trajectory of intraindividual variability in response time across four years. Testing longitudinal brain-behavior associations using multivariate growth models revealed that better behavioral cognitive control was associated with lower fronto-parietal activation, but the change in behavioral performance was not related to the change in brain activation. The current findings suggest that reduced effects of cognitive interference indicated by fronto-parietal recruitment may be a marker of a maturing brain that underlies better cognitive control performance during adolescence.

Maltreatment and brain development: The effects of abuse and neglect on longitudinal trajectories of neural activation during risk processing and cognitive control.

The profound effects of child maltreatment on brain functioning have been documented. Yet, little is known about whether distinct maltreatment experiences are differentially related to underlying neural processes of risky decision making: valuation and control. Using conditional growth curve modeling, we compared a cumulative approach versus a dimensional approach (relative effects of abuse and neglect) to examine the link between child maltreatment and brain development. The sample included 167 adolescents (13-14 years at Time 1, 53 % male), assessed annually four times. Risk processing was assessed by blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses (BOLD) during a lottery choice task, and cognitive control by BOLD responses during the Multi-Source Interference Task. Cumulative maltreatment effects on insula and dorsolateral anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation during risk processing were not significant. However, neglect (but not abuse) was associated with slower developmental increases in insula and dACC activation. In contrast, cumulative maltreatment effects on fronto-parietal activation during cognitive control were significant, and abuse (but not neglect) was associated with steeper developmental decreases in fronto-parietal activation. The results suggest neglect effects on detrimental neurodevelopment of the valuation system and abuse effects on accelerated neurodevelopment of the control system, highlighting differential effects of distinct neglect versus abuse adverse experiences on neurodevelopment.

Processes linking socioeconomic disadvantage and neural correlates of cognitive control in adolescence.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is broadly associated with self-regulatory abilities across childhood and adolescence. However, there is limited understanding of the mechanisms underlying this association, especially during adolescence when individuals are particularly sensitive to environmental influences. The current study tested perceived stress, household chaos, parent cognitive control, and parent-adolescent relationship quality as potential proximal mediators of the association between family SES and neural correlates of cognitive control. A sample of 167 adolescents and their primary caregivers participated in a longitudinal study across four years. SES was indexed by caregivers' education and income-to-needs ratio at Time 1. At Time 2, adolescents reported on their perceived stress, household chaos, and relationship with parents, and parents completed a cognitive control task. Two years later, adolescents completed the same cognitive control task while blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) response was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A parallel mediation model indicated that parent cognitive control, but not other proximal factors, explained the relation between SES and adolescents' activation in the middle frontal gyrus during a cognitive control task. The results suggest potential targets for intervention and prevention efforts that may positively alter neurocognitive outcomes related to socioeconomic disadvantage.