Katie A. McLaughlin, Lab Director, discusses the findings from a recent lab paper demonstrating the importance of sensitivity to reward as a protective factor for adolescents who have experienced maltreatment.  The paper was led by Meg Dennison, a post-doctoral fellow in the lab.  The findings suggest that adolescents who have high sensitivity to environmental rewards - at both behavioral and neural levels - are less likely to develop depression after experiencing maltreatment than adolescents who are less sensitive to reward.  These findings highlight novel avenues for intervention with children who have experienced maltreatment and suggest that interventions targeting reward processing - like behavioral activation - might be particularly helpful in preventing the onset of depression.

For more details, click here.