Author : Justin Daniel Caouette
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781339825915
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (259 download)
Book Synopsis Neural Correlates of Social Evaluation and Depression Risk in Adolescent Girls by : Justin Daniel Caouette
Download or read book Neural Correlates of Social Evaluation and Depression Risk in Adolescent Girls written by Justin Daniel Caouette and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The broad goal of the following research project was to identify the relationships that neurobiological and social factors show with both risk and overt expression of depression in adolescent girls. Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of depression, particularly for girls. Existing research suggests this vulnerability is rooted in the dynamic interplay between age-typical neurobiological and social changes. Adolescents have heightened sensitivity to social experiences during a time when the brain undergoes significant neural reorganization. In addition, adolescents become more sensitive to social stressors such as negative peer experiences. Heightened depression risk in adolescent girls might be a function of increased sensitivity to social reward as a diathesis, and negative peer social experiences as a stress factor. However, despite its usefulness in pinpointing mechanisms of depression risk, there is a paucity of research integrating neurobiological function and social context in adolescent girls. The current project addressed this gap across two studies by examining neural correlates of social evaluation and depression risk in late adolescent girls, pairing functional neuroimaging with an emotionally evocative social evaluation paradigm. In Study 1, early adolescent depression (ages 11 and 12) was associated with mid-adolescent (ages 12-16) negative self-perceptions among peers and with dampened late adolescent (age 17) response to positive peer social evaluation in prefrontal cortical and subcortical regions of the brain involved in social flexibility. In Study 2, chronic peer victimization experiences across adolescence (ages 10-16) predicted dampened response to negative social evaluation in a distributed network of brain regions involved in affect regulation. Taken together, these studies are among the first to highlight the role of experiences with peers in guiding neurobiological risk for depression in adolescent girls. Specifically, they pinpoint compromised cognitive and affective regulation of peer evaluation as a mechanism of depression risk. This research represents an exciting new avenue for developmental science research that integrates neurobiological and social developmental processes to improve understanding of depression pathophysiology in adolescent girls.