Fluctuations in emotion regulation as a mechanism linking stress and internalizing psychopathology among adolescents: An intensive longitudinal study.

Stressful life events (SLEs) are tightly coupled with the emergence of anxiety and depression symptoms among adolescents, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood. We investigated within-person fluctuations in emotion regulation as a mechanism linking SLEs and internalizing psychopathology in an intensive longitudinal study. We examined how monthly fluctuations in SLEs were related to engagement in three emotion regulation strategies-acceptance, reappraisal, and rumination-and whether these strategies were associated with changes in internalizing symptoms in adolescents followed for one year (N = 30; n = 355 monthly observations). Bayesian hierarchical models revealed that on months when adolescents experienced more SLEs than was typical for them, they also engaged in more rumination, which, in turn, was associated with higher anxiety and depression symptoms and mediated the prospective relationship between SLEs and internalizing symptoms. In contrast, greater use of acceptance and reappraisal selectively moderated the association between stressors and internalizing symptoms, resulting in stronger links between SLEs and symptoms. These results suggest that emotion regulation strategies play different roles in the stress-psychopathology relationship. Understanding how changes in emotion regulation contribute to increases in internalizing symptoms following experiences of stress may provide novel targets for interventions aimed at reducing stress-related psychopathology.

A precision neuroscience approach to estimating reliability of neural responses during emotion processing: Implications for task-fMRI.

Recent work demonstrating low test-retest reliability of neural activation during fMRI tasks raises questions about the utility of task-based fMRI for the study of individual variation in brain function. Two possible sources of the instability in task-based BOLD signal over time are noise or measurement error in the instrument, and meaningful variation across time within-individuals in the construct itself-brain activation elicited during fMRI tasks. Examining the contribution of these two sources of test-retest unreliability in task-evoked brain activity has far-reaching implications for cognitive neuroscience. If test-retest reliability largely reflects measurement error, it suggests that task-based fMRI has little utility in the study of either inter- or intra-individual differences. On the other hand, if task-evoked BOLD signal varies meaningfully over time, it would suggest that this tool may yet be well suited to studying intraindividual variation. We parse these sources of variance in BOLD signal in response to emotional cues over time and within-individuals in a longitudinal sample with 10 monthly fMRI scans. Test-retest reliability was low, reflecting a lack of stability in between-person differences across scans. In contrast, within-person, within-session internal consistency of the BOLD signal was higher, and within-person fluctuations across sessions explained almost half the variance in voxel-level neural responses. Additionally, monthly fluctuations in neural response to emotional cues were associated with intraindividual variation in mood, sleep, and exposure to stressors. Rather than reflecting trait-like differences across people, neural responses to emotional cues may be more reflective of intraindividual variation over time. These patterns suggest that task-based fMRI may be able to contribute to the study of individual variation in brain function if more attention is given to within-individual variation approaches, psychometrics-beginning with improving reliability beyond the modest estimates observed here, and the validity of task fMRI beyond the suggestive associations reported here.

Physical Effort Exertion for Peer Feedback Reveals Evolving Social Motivations From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.

Peer relationships and social belonging are particularly important during adolescence. Using a willingness-to-work paradigm to quantify incentive motivation, we examined whether evaluative information holds unique value for adolescents. Participants (N = 102; 12-23 years old) rated peers, predicted how peers rated them, and exerted physical effort to view each peer's rating. We measured grip force, speed, and opt-out behavior to examine the motivational value of peer feedback, relative to money in a control condition, and to assess how peer desirability and participants' expectations modulated motivated effort across age. Overall, when compared with adolescents, adults were relatively less motivated for feedback than money. Whereas adults exerted less force and speed for feedback when expecting rejection, adolescents exerted greater force and speed when expecting to be more strongly liked or disliked. These findings suggest that the transition into adulthood is accompanied by a self-protective focus, whereas adolescents are motivated to consume highly informative feedback, even if negative.

Social experiences and youth psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study.

The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-at-home orders resulted in a stark reduction in daily social interactions for children and adolescents. Given that peer relationships are especially important during this developmental stage, it is crucial to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social behavior and risk for psychopathology in children and adolescents. In a longitudinal sample (N=224) of children (7-10y) and adolescents (13-15y) assessed at three strategic time points (before the pandemic, during the initial stay-at-home order period, and six months later after the initial stay-at-home order period was lifted), we examine whether certain social factors protect against increases in stress-related psychopathology during the pandemic, controlling for pre-pandemic symptoms. Youth who reported less in-person and digital socialization, greater social isolation, and less social support had worsened psychopathology during the pandemic. Greater social isolation and decreased digital socialization during the pandemic were associated with greater risk for psychopathology after experiencing pandemic-related stressors. In addition, children, but not adolescents, who maintained some in-person socialization were less likely to develop internalizing symptoms following exposure to pandemic-related stressors. We identify social factors that promote well-being and resilience in youth during this societal event.

Early-childhood temperament moderates the prospective associations of coping with adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

While appraisal and coping are known to impact adolescent psychopathology, more vulnerable or resilient responses to stress may depend on individual temperament. This study examined early life temperament as a moderator of the prospective relations of pre-adolescent appraisal and coping with adolescent psychopathology. The sample included 226 (62% female, 14-15 years) adolescents with assessments starting at 3 years of age. Adolescents were predominately White (12% Black 9% Asian, 11% Latinx, 4% Multiracial, and 65% White). Observed early-childhood temperament (fear, frustration, executive control, and delay ability) were tested as moderators of pre-adolescent coping (active and avoidant) and appraisal (threat, positive) on internalizing and externalizing symptoms during the pandemic. Interaction effects were tested using regression in R. Sex and family context of stress were covariates. Early-childhood temperament was correlated with pre-adolescent symptoms, however, pre-adolescent appraisal and coping but not temperament predicted adolescent psychopathology. Frustration moderated the relations of active and avoidant coping and positive appraisal to symptoms such that coping and appraisal related to lower symptoms only for those low in frustration. Executive control moderated the associations of avoidant coping with symptoms such that avoidance reduced the likelihood of symptoms for youth low in executive control. Findings underscore the role of emotionality and self-regulation in youth adjustment, with the impact of coping differing with temperament. These findings suggest that equipping youth with a flexible assortment of coping skills may serve to reduce negative mental health outcomes.

Stress-related psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced widespread societal changes that have required ongoing adaptation. Unsurprisingly, stress-related psychopathology has increased during the pandemic, in both children and adults. We review these patterns through the lens of several leading conceptual models of the link between stress and psychopathology. Some of these models focus on characteristics of environmental stressors-including cumulative risk, specific stressor types, and stress sensitization approaches. Understanding the specific aspects of environmental stressors that are most likely to lead to psychopathology can shed light on who may be in most need of clinical intervention. Other models center on factors that can buffer against the onset of psychopathology following stress and the mechanisms through which stressors contribute to emergent psychopathology. These models highlight specific psychosocial processes that may be most usefully targeted by interventions to reduce stress-related psychopathology. We review evidence for each of these stress models in the context of other widescale community-level disruptions, like natural disasters and terrorist attacks, alongside emerging evidence for these stress pathways from the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss clinical implications for developing interventions to reduce stress-related psychopathology during the pandemic, with a focus on brief, digital interventions that may be more accessible than traditional clinical services.

Maternal mental health mediates the effects of pandemic-related stressors on adolescent psychopathology during COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: This study examined whether COVID-19-related maternal mental health changes contributed to changes in adolescent psychopathology. METHODS: A community sample of 226 adolescents (12 years old before COVID-19) and their mothers were asked to complete COVID-19 surveys early in the pandemic (April-May 2020, adolescents 14 years) and approximately 6 months later (November 2020-January 2021). Surveys assessed pandemic-related stressors (health, financial, social, school, environment) and mental health. RESULTS: Lower pre-pandemic family income-to-needs ratio was associated with higher pre-pandemic maternal mental health symptoms (anxiety, depression) and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, and with experiencing more pandemic-related stressors. Pandemic-related stressors predicted increases in maternal mental health symptoms, but not adolescent symptoms when other variables were covaried. Higher maternal mental health symptoms predicted concurrent increases in adolescent internalizing and externalizing. Maternal mental health mediated the effects of pre-pandemic income and pandemic-related stressors on adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that adolescent mental health is closely tied to maternal mental health during community-level stressors such as COVID-19, and that pre-existing family economic context and adolescent symptoms increase risk for elevations in symptoms of psychopathology.

Contributions of Emotion Regulation and Brain Structure and Function to Adolescent Internalizing Problems and Stress Vulnerability During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study.

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a period of increased vulnerability for internalizing problems, particularly following stressful life events. We examined how emotion regulation and brain structure and function were associated with internalizing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic and moderated the association between pandemic-related stressors and internalizing problems. METHODS: Data are from a longitudinal sample (N = 145, age range, 10-15 years) strategically assessed at 3 crucial time points: before the COVID-19 pandemic, early during the stay-at-home order period, and again 6 months later. We examined associations of amygdala and hippocampal volume and amygdala activation during an emotional processing task before the pandemic, examined use of emotion regulation strategies before and during the pandemic, and examined pandemic-related stressors with internalizing problems. RESULTS: Greater exposure to pandemic-related stressors was associated with higher internalizing problems both early and later in the COVID-19 pandemic. Youths who reported more frequent use of rumination before the pandemic and higher use of expressive suppression and lower use of cognitive reappraisal early in the pandemic had higher internalizing problems early in the pandemic. Higher left amygdala activation to neutral relative to fearful faces before the pandemic was associated with greater internalizing problems and a stronger link between pandemic-related stressors and internalizing problems early in the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic are strongly associated with adolescent internalizing problems, as are individual differences in emotional reactivity and regulation and their underlying neural mechanisms. Interventions that reduce pandemic-related stressors and foster adaptive emotion regulation skills may protect against adolescent psychopathology during this period of heightened exposure to stress.

A year in the social life of a teenager: Within-person fluctuations in stress, phone communication, and anxiety and depression.

Stressful life events (SLEs) are strongly associated with the emergence of adolescent anxiety and depression, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood, especially at the within-person level. We investigated how adolescent social communication (i.e., frequency of calls and texts) following SLEs relates to changes in internalizing symptoms in a multi-timescale intensive year-long study (N=30; n=355 monthly observations; n=~5,000 experience-sampling observations). Within-person increases in SLEs were associated with receiving more calls than usual at both monthly- and momentary-levels, and making more calls at the monthly-level. Increased calls were prospectively associated with worsening internalizing symptoms at the monthly-level only, suggesting that SLEs rapidly influences phone communication patterns, but these communication changes may have a more protracted, cumulative influence on internalizing symptoms. Finally, increased incoming calls prospectively mediated the association between SLEs and anxiety at the monthly-level. We identify adolescent social communication fluctuations as a potential mechanism conferring risk for stress-related internalizing psychopathology.

Promoting youth mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced novel stressors into the lives of youth. Identifying factors that protect against the onset of psychopathology in the face of these stressors is critical. We examine a wide range of factors that may protect youth from developing psychopathology during the pandemic. We assessed pandemic-related stressors, internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, and potential protective factors by combining two longitudinal samples of children and adolescents (N = 224, 7-10 and 13-15 years) assessed prior to the pandemic, during the stay-at-home orders, and six months later. We evaluated how family behaviors during the stay-at-home orders were related to changes in psychopathology during the pandemic, identified factors that moderate the association of pandemic-related stressors with psychopathology, and determined whether associations varied by age. Internalizing and externalizing psychopathology increased substantially during the pandemic. Higher exposure to pandemic-related stressors was associated with increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms early in the pandemic and six months later. Having a structured routine, less passive screen time, lower exposure to news media about the pandemic, and to a lesser extent more time in nature and getting adequate sleep were associated with reduced psychopathology. The association between pandemic-related stressors and psychopathology was reduced for youths with limited passive screen time and was absent for children, but not adolescents, with lower news media consumption related to the pandemic. We provide insight into simple, practical steps families can take to promote resilience against mental health problems in youth during the COVID-19 pandemic and protect against psychopathology following pandemic-related stressors.

High emotion differentiation buffers against internalizing symptoms following exposure to stressful life events in adolescence: An intensive longitudinal study.

Exposure to stressful life events is strongly associated with internalizing psychopathology, and identifying factors that reduce vulnerability to stress-related internalizing problems is critical for development of early interventions. Drawing on research from affective science, we tested whether high emotion differentiation-the ability to specifically identify one's feelings-buffers adolescents from developing internalizing symptoms when exposed to stress. Thirty adolescents completed a laboratory measure of emotion differentiation before an intensive year-long longitudinal study in which exposure to stress and internalizing problems were assessed at both the moment-level (n=4,921 experience sampling assessments) and monthly-level (n=355 monthly assessments). High negative and positive emotion differentiation attenuated moment-level coupling between perceived stress and feelings of depression, and high negative emotion differentiation eliminated monthly-level associations between stressful life events and anxiety symptoms. These results suggest that high emotion differentiation buffers adolescents against anxiety and depression in the face of stress, perhaps by facilitating adaptive emotion regulation.

How adolescents and adults translate motivational value to action: Age-related shifts in strategic physical effort exertion for monetary rewards.

Adults titrate the degree of physical effort they are willing to expend according to the magnitude of reward they expect to obtain, a process guided by incentive motivation. However, it remains unclear whether adolescents, who are undergoing normative developmental changes in cognitive and reward processing, translate incentive motivation into action in a way that is similarly tuned to reward value and economical in effort utilization. The present study adapted a classic physical effort paradigm to quantify age-related changes in motivation-based and strategic markers of effort exertion for monetary rewards from adolescence to early adulthood. One hundred three participants aged 12-23 years completed a task that involved exerting low or high amounts of physical effort, in the form of a hand grip, to earn low or high amounts of money. Adolescents and young adults exhibited highly similar incentive-modulated effort for reward according to measures of peak grip force and speed, suggesting that motivation for monetary reward is consistent across age. However, young adults expended energy more economically and strategically: Whereas adolescents were prone to exert excess physical effort beyond what was required to earn reward, young adults were more likely to strategically prepare before each grip phase and conserve energy by opting out of low reward trials. This work extends theoretical models of development of incentive-driven behavior by demonstrating that layered on similarity in motivational value for monetary reward, there are important differences in the way behavior is flexibly adjusted in the presence of reward from adolescence to young adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Reduced hippocampal and amygdala volume as a mechanism underlying stress sensitization to depression following childhood trauma.

BACKGROUND: Stressful life events are more likely to trigger depression among individuals exposed to childhood adversity. However, the mechanisms underlying this stress sensitization remain largely unknown. Any such mechanism must be altered by childhood adversity and interact with recent stressful life events, magnifying their association with depression. AIM: This study investigated whether reduced hippocampal and amygdala volume are potential mechanisms underlying stress sensitization following childhood violence exposure. METHOD: A sample of 149 youth (aged 8-17 years), with (N = 75) and without (N = 74) exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse, or domestic violence participated. Participants completed a structural MRI scan and assessments of depression. Approximately 2 years later, stressful life events were assessed along with depression symptoms in 120 participants (57 violence exposed). RESULTS: Childhood violence exposure was associated with smaller hippocampal and amygdala volume. Stressful life events occurring during the follow-up period predicted worsening depression over time, and this association was magnified among those with smaller hippocampal and amygdala volumes. Significant moderated mediation models revealed the indirect effects of violence exposure on increasing depression over time through hippocampal and amygdala volumes, particularly among youths who experienced more stressful life events. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence for reduced hippocampal and amygdala volume as potential mechanisms of stress sensitization to depression following exposure to violence. More broadly, these patterns suggest that hippocampal and amygdala-mediated emotional and cognitive processes may confer vulnerability to stressful life events among children who have experienced violence.

Ethical dilemmas posed by mobile health and machine learning in psychiatry research.

The application of digital technology to psychiatry research is rapidly leading to new discoveries and capabilities in the field of mobile health. However, the increase in opportunities to passively collect vast amounts of detailed information on study participants coupled with advances in statistical techniques that enable machine learning models to process such information has raised novel ethical dilemmas regarding researchers' duties to: (i) monitor adverse events and intervene accordingly; (ii) obtain fully informed, voluntary consent; (iii) protect the privacy of participants; and (iv) increase the transparency of powerful, machine learning models to ensure they can be applied ethically and fairly in psychiatric care. This review highlights emerging ethical challenges and unresolved ethical questions in mobile health research and provides recommendations on how mobile health researchers can address these issues in practice. Ultimately, the hope is that this review will facilitate continued discussion on how to achieve best practice in mobile health research within psychiatry.

L'application des technologies numériques à la recherche psychiatrique entraîne rapidement de nouvelles découvertes et capacités en matière de santé mobile. Cependant, la multiplication des opportunités de recueillir passivement d'immenses quantités d'informations détaillées sur les participants aux études combinée aux progrès des techniques statistiques permettant aux modèles d'apprentissage automatique de traiter de telles informations a soulevé de nouveaux dilemmes éthiques concernant l'obligation des chercheurs: (i) de surveiller les effets indésirables et d'intervenir en conséquence; (ii) d'obtenir un consentement pleinement éclairé et volontaire; (iii) de protéger la vie privée des participants; et enfin, (iv) d'améliorer la transparence des puissants modèles d'apprentissage automatique afin de garantir une application éthique et impartiale dans le domaine des soins psychiatriques. Ce rapport identifie les défis qui en découlent ainsi que les questions éthiques non résolues en matière de santé mobile. Il formule également des recommandations sur la façon dont les chercheurs en santé mobile peuvent résoudre ces problèmes dans la pratique. À terme, nous espérons que ce rapport favorisera la poursuite des discussions portant sur les moyens de définir des méthodes de recherche adéquates pour la santé mobile en psychiatrie.

La aplicación de la tecnología digital a la investigación en psiquiatría está conduciendo rápidamente a descubrimientos y capacidades nuevas en el ámbito de la salud móvil. No obstante, el incremento de las oportunidades para recopilar pasivamente grandes volúmenes de información detallada sobre los participantes en los estudios, junto con los avances en las técnicas de estadística que permiten a los modelos de aprendizaje automático procesar tal información, ha planteado nuevos dilemas éticos relativos a los deberes de los investigadores: (i) hacer un seguimiento de los eventos adversos e intervenir en consecuencia; (ii) obtener un consentimiento voluntario plenamente informado; (iii) proteger la privacidad de los participantes; y (iv) aumentar la transparencia de los modelos potentes de aprendizaje automático para asegurar que puedan aplicarse de manera ética y justa en la atención psiquiátrica. En este análisis se destacan tanto los desafíos éticos nuevos como las cuestiones éticas aún sin resolver en la investigación sobre la salud móvil y se formulan recomendaciones sobre cómo los investigadores de la salud móvil pueden abordar dichas cuestiones en la práctica. En última instancia, se espera que este análisis facilite un debate continuo sobre cómo lograr las mejores prácticas en la investigación de la salud móvil dentro de la psiquiatría.

Mechanisms linking childhood trauma exposure and psychopathology: a transdiagnostic model of risk and resilience.

BACKGROUND: Transdiagnostic processes confer risk for multiple types of psychopathology and explain the co-occurrence of different disorders. For this reason, transdiagnostic processes provide ideal targets for early intervention and treatment. Childhood trauma exposure is associated with elevated risk for virtually all commonly occurring forms of psychopathology. We articulate a transdiagnostic model of the developmental mechanisms that explain the strong links between childhood trauma and psychopathology as well as protective factors that promote resilience against multiple forms of psychopathology. MAIN BODY: We present a model of transdiagnostic mechanisms spanning three broad domains: social information processing, emotional processing, and accelerated biological aging. Changes in social information processing that prioritize threat-related information-such as heightened perceptual sensitivity to threat, misclassification of negative and neutral emotions as anger, and attention biases towards threat-related cues-have been consistently observed in children who have experienced trauma. Patterns of emotional processing common in children exposed to trauma include elevated emotional reactivity to threat-related stimuli, low emotional awareness, and difficulties with emotional learning and emotion regulation. More recently, a pattern of accelerated aging across multiple biological metrics, including pubertal development and cellular aging, has been found in trauma-exposed children. Although these changes in social information processing, emotional responding, and the pace of biological aging reflect developmental adaptations that may promote safety and provide other benefits for children raised in dangerous environments, they have been consistently associated with the emergence of multiple forms of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology and explain the link between childhood trauma exposure and transdiagnostic psychopathology. Children with higher levels of social support, particularly from caregivers, are less likely to develop psychopathology following trauma exposure. Caregiver buffering of threat-related processing may be one mechanism explaining this protective effect. CONCLUSION: Childhood trauma exposure is a powerful transdiagnostic risk factor associated with elevated risk for multiple forms of psychopathology across development. Changes in threat-related social and emotional processing and accelerated biological aging serve as transdiagnostic mechanisms linking childhood trauma with psychopathology. These transdiagnostic mechanisms represent critical targets for early interventions aimed at preventing the emergence of psychopathology in children who have experienced trauma.

Within-person fluctuations in stressful life events, sleep, and anxiety and depression symptoms during adolescence: a multiwave prospective study.

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is characterized by substantial changes in sleep behavior, heightened exposure to stressful life events (SLEs), and elevated risk for internalizing problems like anxiety and depression. Although SLEs are consistently associated with the onset of internalizing psychopathology, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood, especially at the within-person level. Here, we leverage a high-frequency longitudinal design to examine sleep as a potential mechanism linking SLEs to increases in anxiety and depression symptoms over a one-year period. METHODS: Thirty female adolescents aged 15-17 years completed 12 monthly in-laboratory assessments of exposure to SLEs and symptoms of anxiety and depression (n = 355 monthly assessments), and wore an actigraphy wristband for continuous monitoring of sleep for the duration of the study (n = 6,824 sleep days). Multilevel models examined concurrent and lagged within-person associations between SLEs, sleep duration and timing regularity, and anxiety and depression symptoms. RESULTS: Within-person fluctuations in SLEs were associated with variability in sleep duration both concurrently and prospectively, such that when adolescents experienced greater SLEs than was typical for them, they exhibited more variable sleep duration that same month as well as the following month. In turn, within-person increases in sleep duration variability predicted greater anxiety symptoms in the same month and mediated the association between SLEs and anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight sleep disruptions as a mechanism underlying the longitudinal associations between SLEs and anxiety symptoms, and suggest that interventions promoting sleep schedule consistency may help mitigate risk for stress-related psychopathology in adolescence.

Neurobiological Markers of Resilience to Depression Following Childhood Maltreatment: The Role of Neural Circuits Supporting the Cognitive Control of Emotion.

BACKGROUND: Childhood adversity is strongly linked to negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety. Leveraging cognitive neuroscience to identify mechanisms that contribute to resilience in children with a history of maltreatment may provide viable intervention targets for the treatment or prevention of psychopathology. We present a conceptual model of a potential neurobiological mechanism of resilience to depression and anxiety following childhood adversity. Specifically, we argue that neural circuits underlying the cognitive control of emotion may promote resilience, wherein a child's ability to recruit the frontoparietal control network to modulate amygdala reactivity to negative emotional cues-such as during cognitive reappraisal-buffers risk for internalizing symptoms following exposure to adversity. METHODS: We provide preliminary support for this model of resilience in a longitudinal sample of 151 participants 8 to 17 years of age with (n = 79) and without (n = 72) a history of childhood maltreatment who completed a cognitive reappraisal task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: Among maltreated youths, those who were better able to recruit prefrontal control regions and modulate amygdala reactivity during reappraisal exhibited lower risk for depression over time. By contrast, no association was observed between neural functioning during reappraisal and depression among youths without a history of maltreatment. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary findings support the hypothesis that children who are better able to regulate emotion through recruitment of the frontoparietal network exhibit greater resilience to depression following childhood maltreatment. Interventions targeting cognitive reappraisal and other cognitive emotion regulation strategies may have potential for reducing vulnerability to depression among children exposed to adversity.

Development of self-protective biases in response to social evaluative feedback.

Adolescence is a developmental period marked by heightened attunement to social evaluation. While adults have been shown to enact self-protective processes to buffer their self-views from evaluative threats like peer rejection, it is unclear whether adolescents avail themselves of the same defenses. The present study examines how social evaluation shapes views of the self and others differently across development. N = 107 participants ages 10-23 completed a reciprocal social evaluation task that involved predicting and receiving peer acceptance and rejection feedback, along with assessments of self-views and likability ratings of peers. Here, we show that, despite equivalent experiences of social evaluation, adolescents internalized peer rejection, experiencing a feedback-induced drop in self-views, whereas adults externalized peer rejection, reporting a task-induced boost in self-views and deprecating the peers who rejected them. The results identify codeveloping processes underlying why peer rejection may lead to more dramatic alterations in self-views during adolescence than other phases of the lifespan.

A Preliminary Study of the Opioid System and Personality Traits Using Positron Emission Tomography.

BACKGROUND: Personality traits, such as Neuroticism and Extraversion, have been implicated in the processing of emotion. The neural correlates most often associated with Neuroticism and Extraversion are the insular cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and ventral striatum. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the current study was to explore neurotransmitter systems underlying those neural correlates and investigate the relationship between personality traits and opioid receptor binding potential. METHOD: Twelve healthy participants completed an [11C]diprenorphine positron emission tomography scan at rest. Endogenous opioid levels as indicated by opioid receptor binding potential was examined in relation to personality phenotype. RESULTS: A high score of Neuroticism, a personality trait characterized by negative affect, was found to be associated with high opioid receptor binding in the right anterior insula. Conversely, a high score of Extraversion, a personality trait characterized by positive affect, was found to be associated with low opioid receptor binding in the left posterior insula. CONCLUSIONS: While preliminary, the results of this study suggest that the expression of Neuroticism and Extraversion is related to baseline function of the opioid neurotransmitter system in the insular cortex. These findings may help elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the expression of personality traits, particularly those implicated in affective processing.