Development and Psychopathology最新文献

Building on the sensitization hypothesis, the present work aimed to examine how parent-adolescent conflict might be associated with heightened emotional reactivity to peer conflicts, which in turn shape the development of adolescent internalizing psychopathology. Participants were 108 Taiwanese adolescents between the ages of 18 and 19 (M_age = 18.53, SD_age = 0.39; 64% female) who completed baseline assessments, 14-day daily surveys, and 6-month follow-up assessments. Emotional reactivity was measured by calculating the daily association between peer conflict and positive and negative emotions. Results indicated that greater baseline parent-adolescent conflict was associated with higher negative emotional reactivity to peer conflicts, which then predicted increased depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms 6 months later. Moreover, greater positive emotional reactivity to peer conflicts (i.e., more declines in positive emotions in response to peer conflicts) predicted increased depressive symptoms. Thus, the findings of the current study support and extend the sensitization hypothesis and suggest that parent-adolescent conflict may contribute to family-of-origin sensitization in non-familial, interpersonal contexts. The results have key implications for understanding adolescent developmental psychopathology associated with family conflicts and emotional reactivity.

The rates of anxiety and depression increase across adolescence, many experience recurrence after treatment, yet longitudinal studies examining promotive factors are scarce. We prospectively examined the role of the promotive factors structured style, personal and social competencies, family functioning, and social resources in homotypic and heterotypic continuity and discontinuity of anxiety and depression across three years in a clinical sample. Participants were adolescents with anxiety or depressive disorders aged 13-18 years at T1 (N = 717, 44% initial participation rate) and aged 16-21 years at T2 (N = 549, 80% follow-up participation rate). At T1, diagnoses were collected from medical records and participants responded to questionnaires. At T2, semi-structured diagnostic interviews were conducted. Higher levels of all promotive factors were associated with reduced probability of anxiety or depression three years later. The promotive factors were not associated with homotypic continuity of anxiety, whereas personal competence beliefs, social competence, and, less strongly, family functioning were associated with reduced homotypic continuity of depression and heterotypic continuity from depression to anxiety. Analyses with interaction terms did not indicate moderation by the promotive factors. Our findings suggest that bolstering promotive factors may be vital for increasing treatment success and preventing recurrence of anxiety and depression in the transition toward adulthood.

Previous studies show that maternal mind-mindedness positively impacts children's social development. In the current studies, we examine the relation between mind-mindedness during parent-child interaction, oxytocin (OT), and postnatal depression in a sample of mothers (N = 62, ages 23-44) and their infant (ages 3-9 months). In Study 1, infant salivary OT was positively correlated with mothers' appropriate mind-related comments, and negatively correlated (at trend level) with maternal depression scores. Mothers experiencing symptoms of depression used fewer appropriate mind-related comments than controls. Study 2 was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, experimental study, in which the same women who participated in Study 1 were administered nasal OT. This did not significantly influence levels of mind-mindedness. Study 2 warrants a larger trial to investigate the effect of OT on mind-mindedness further. Study 1 is the first to demonstrate an association between maternal mind-mindedness and variation in children's OT levels. Since both OT and mind-mindedness have been repeatedly implicated in processes of maternal-infant attachment, this association highlights the centrality of mothers' caregiving representations in facilitating the parent-child relationship and children's early development.

Prenatal glucocorticoid exposure has been negatively associated with infant neurocognitive outcomes. However, questions about developmental timing effects across gestation remain. Participants were 253 mother-child dyads who participated in a prospective cohort study recruited in the first trimester of pregnancy. Diurnal cortisol was measured in maternal saliva samples collected across a single day within each trimester of pregnancy. Children (49.8% female) completed the Bayley Mental Development Scales, Third Edition at 6, 12, and 24 months and completed three observational executive function tasks at 24 months. Structural equation models adjusting for sociodemographic covariates were used to test study hypotheses. There was significant evidence for timing sensitivity. First-trimester diurnal cortisol (area under the curve) was negatively associated with cognitive and language development at 12 months and poorer inhibition at 24 months. Second-trimester cortisol exposure was negatively associated with language scores at 24 months. Third-trimester cortisol positively predicted performance in shifting between task rules (set shifting) at 24 months. Associations were not reliably moderated by child sex. Findings suggest that neurocognitive development is sensitive to prenatal glucocorticoid exposure as early as the first trimester and underscore the importance of assessing developmental timing in research on prenatal exposures for child health outcomes.

Similar to adults with posttraumatic stress disorder, children with early life adversity show bias in memory for negative emotional stimuli. However, it is not well understood how childhood adversity impacts mechanisms underlying emotional memory. N = 56 children (8-14 years, 48% female) reported on adverse experiences including potentially traumatic events and underwent fMRI while attending to emotionally pleasant, neutral, or negative images. Post-scan, participants completed a cued recall test to assess memory for these images. Emotional difference-in-memory (DM) scores were computed by subtracting negative or positive from neutral recall performance. All children showed enhancing effects of emotion on recall, with no effect of trauma load. However, children with less trauma showed a larger emotional DM for both positive and negative stimuli when amygdala or anterior hippocampal activity was higher. In contrast, highly trauma-exposed children demonstrated a lower emotional DM with greater amygdala or hippocampal activity. This suggested that alternative neural mechanisms might support emotional enhancement of encoding in children with greater trauma load. Whole-brain analyses revealed that right fusiform activity during encoding positively correlated with both trauma load and successful later recall of positive images. Therefore, highly trauma-exposed children may use alternative, potentially adaptive neural pathways via the ventral visual stream to encode positive emotional events.

Depression is transmitted within families, but the mechanisms involved in such transmission are not clearly defined. A potential marker of familial risk is the neural response to errors, which may play a role in depression symptoms and is known to be partially heritable. Here, 97 mother-daughter dyads completed a Flanker task while electroencephalography markers of error monitoring were recorded: the error-related negativity (ERN) and response-locked delta and theta power. We assessed whether these measures of neural response to errors 1) were associated with history of recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) and current depression symptoms among mothers, 2) were correlated among mother-daughter dyads, and 3) were associated with maternal history of recurrent MDD and maternal symptoms of depression among daughters. A history of recurrent MDD was associated with blunted delta and increased theta among mothers. Across mothers, delta and theta were negatively and positively associated, respectively, with current depression symptoms. Mothers' and daughters' ERN were positively correlated. Finally, current maternal depression symptoms were negatively associated with delta power in daughters. These results suggest that neural responses to errors may be implicated in the intergenerational transmission of depression. These results also support the relevance of delta oscillations to understanding pathways to depression.

Autism spectrum disorder prevalence more than quadrupled in the United States between 2000 and 2020. Ice storm-related prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) predicts autistic-like trait severity in children exposed early in gestation. The objective was to determine the extent to which PNMS influences the severity and trajectory of autistic-like traits in prenatally flood-exposed children at ages 4-7 years and to test moderation by sex and gestational timing. Soon after the June 2008 floods in Iowa, USA, 268 women pregnant during the disaster were assessed for objective hardship, subjective distress, and cognitive appraisal of the experience. When their children were 4, 5½, and 7 years old, mothers completed the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) to assess their children's autistic-like traits; 137 mothers completed the SCQ for at least one age. The final longitudinal multilevel model showed that the greater the maternal subjective distress, the more severe the child's autistic-like traits, controlling for objective hardship. The effect of PNMS on rate of change was not significant, and there were no significant main effects or interactions involving sex or timing. Prenatal maternal subjective distress, but not objective hardship or cognitive appraisal, predicted more severe autistic-like traits at age 4, and this effect remained stable through age 7.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among individuals aged 10-24. Research using intensive longitudinal methods to identify near-term predictors of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) has grown dramatically. Interpersonal factors may be particularly critical for suicide risk among young people, given the heightened salience of interpersonal experiences during adolescence and young adulthood. We conducted a narrative review on intensive longitudinal studies investigating how interpersonal factors contribute to STBs among adolescents and young adults. Thirty-two studies met the inclusion criteria and focused on theoretical and cross-theoretical interpersonal risk factors. Negative interpersonal states (e.g., perceived burdensomeness), hopelessness, and social support were consistently associated with proximal within-person changes in concurrent, but not prospective, suicidal thoughts. Further, work examining how these processes extend to suicidal behavior and among diverse samples remains scarce. Implications for contemporary interpersonal theories and intensive longitudinal studies of STBs among young people are discussed.