McLaughlin, K. A., DeCross, S. N., Jovanovic, T., & Tottenham, N. (2019).
Mechanisms linking childhood adversity with psychopathology: Learning as an intervention target.
Behaviour Research and Therapy ,
118, 101–109.
Publisher's VersionAbstractExposure to childhood adversity is common and a powerful risk factor for many forms of psychopathology. In this opinion piece, we argue for greater translation of knowledge about the developmental processes that are influenced by childhood adversity into targeted interventions to prevent the onset of psychopathology. Existing evidence has consistently identified several neurodevelopmental pathways that serve as mechanisms linking adversity with psychopathology. We highlight three domains in which these mechanisms are well-established and point to clear targets for intervention: 1) threat-related social information processing biases; 2) heightened emotional reactivity and difficulties with emotion regulation; and 3) disruptions in reward processing. In contrast to these established pathways, knowledge of how childhood adversity influences emotional learning mechanisms, including fear and reward learning, is remarkably limited. We see the investigation of these mechanisms as a critical next step for the field that will not only advance understanding of developmental pathways linking childhood adversity with psychopathology, but also provide clear targets for behavioral interventions. Knowledge of the mechanisms linking childhood adversity with psychopathology has advanced rapidly, and the time has come to translate that knowledge into clinical interventions to prevent the onset of mental health problems in children who have experienced adversity.
PDF Slopen, N., Tang, A., Nelson, C. A., Zeanah, C. H., McDade, T. W., McLaughlin, K. A., & Fox, N. A. (2019).
The Consequences of Foster Care Versus Institutional Care in Early Childhood on Adolescent Cardiometabolic and Immune Markers: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial.
Psychosomatic Medicine ,
81 (5), 449–457.
Publisher's VersionAbstractObjective: Children exposed to institutional rearing often exhibit problems across a broad array of developmental domains. We compared the consequences of long-term, high-quality foster care versus standard institution-based care, which began in early childhood on cardio- metabolic and immune markers assessed at the time of adolescence.
Methods: The Bucharest Early Intervention Project is a longitudinal investigation of children institutionalized during early childhood (ages 6 to 30 months at baseline) who were subsequently randomized to either high-quality foster care or continued institutional care. At the age of 16 years, 127 respondents participated in a biomarker collection protocol, including 44 institutionalized children randomly assigned to receive care as usual, 41 institutionalized children randomized to be removed from institutional care and placed in high-quality foster care in infancy, and a control group of 42 demographically matched children raised in biological families. Outcomes included body mass index (BMI), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, C-reactive protein, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor α, gly- cosylated hemoglobin A1c, and Epstein-Barr virus antibody titers.
Results: Early institutional rearing was not associated with differences in cardiometabolic or immune markers. Randomization to foster care and age of placement into foster care were also unrelated to these markers, with the exception of BMI z-score, where children assigned to care as usual had lower BMI z-scores relative to children assigned to foster care (−0.23 versus 0.08, p = .06), and older age at placement was associated with lower BMI (β = −0.07, p = .03).
Conclusions: The impact of institutional rearing on measures of cardiometabolic health and immune system functioning is either absent or not evident until later in development. These findings provide new insights into the biological embedding of adversity and how it varies developmentally and across regulatory systems and adversity type.
Alvarez, K., Fillbrunn, M., Green, J. G., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., McLaughlin, K. A., Sadikova, E., et al. (2019).
Race/ethnicity, nativity, and lifetime risk of mental disorders in US adults.
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology ,
54 (5), 553–565.
Publisher's VersionAbstractPurpose There has been no comprehensive examination of how race/ethnicity and nativity intersect in explaining differences in lifetime prevalence of mental disorders among Asian, Black, Latino, and White adults. This study aims to estimate racial/ ethnic differences in lifetime risk of mental disorders and examine how group differences vary by nativity. Methods Survival models were used to estimate racial/ethnic and nativity differences in lifetime risk of DSM-IV anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders in a nationally representative sample of over 20,000 respondents to four US surveys. Results Asians had the lowest lifetime prevalence of mental disorders (23.5%), followed by Blacks (37.0%), Latinos (38.8%), and Whites (45.6%). Asians and Blacks had lower lifetime risk than Whites for all disorders even after adjusting for nativity; Latinos and Whites had similar risk after adjusting for nativity. Risk of disorder onset was lowest for foreign-born respondents in years before migration. There were significant race/ethnicity and nativity interactions for mood and substance use disorders. Odds of mood disorder onset were higher for Whites with at least one US-born parent. Odds of substance use disorder onset among Asians were higher for US-born respondents; for Latinos, they were higher for those with at least one US-born parent. Conclusions Parental foreign-born nativity is associated with a low risk of mental disorders, but not uniformly across racial/ ethnic groups or disorders. Exposure to the US context may be associated with greater mental disorder risk for Latinos and Whites particularly. Investigations of cultural processes, including among Whites, are needed to understand group differences.
PDF Jenness, J. L., Miller, A. B., Rosen, M. L., & McLaughlin, K. A. (2019).
Extinction Learning as a Potential Mechanism Linking High Vagal Tone with Lower PTSD Symptoms among Abused Youth.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology ,
47 (4), 659–670.
Publisher's VersionAbstractChildhood abuse is a potent risk factor for psychopathology, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has shown high resting vagal tone, a measure of parasympathetic nervous system function, protects abused youth from developing internalizing psychopathology, but potential mechanisms explaining this effect are unknown. We explored fear extinction learning as a possible mechanism underlying the protective effect of vagal tone on PTSD symptoms among abused youth. We measured resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and skin conductance responses (SCR) during a fear conditioning and extinction task in youth with variability in abuse exposure (N = 94; aged 6–18 years). High RSA predicted lower PTSD symptoms and enhanced extinction learning among abused youths. In a moderated-mediation model, extinction learning mediated the association of abuse with PTSD symptoms only among youth with high RSA. These findings highlight extinction learning as a possible mechanism linking high vagal tone to decreased risk for PTSD symptoms among abused youth.
PDF Machlin, L., Miller, A. B., Snyder, J., McLaughlin, K. A., & Sheridan, M. A. (2019).
Differential Associations between Deprivation and Threat With Cognitive Control and Fear Conditioning in Early Childhood.
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience ,
13.
Publisher's VersionAbstractEarly-life adversity (ELA) is strongly associated with risk for psychopathology. Within adversity, deprivation and threat may lead to psychopathology through different intermediary pathways. Specifically, deprivation, defined as the absence of expected cognitive and social inputs, is associated with lower performance on complex cognitive tasks whereas threatening experiences, defined as the presence of experiences that reflect harm to the child, are associated with atypical fear learning and emotional processes. However, distinct associations of deprivation and threat on behavioral outcomes have not been examined in early childhood. The present study examines how deprivation and threat are associated with cognitive and emotional outcomes in early childhood. Children 4-7 years old (N=63) completed behavioral tasks assessing cognitive control and fear conditioning; deprivation and threat were assessed using child interview and parent questionnaires. Regression analyses were performed including deprivation and threat scores and controls for age, gender and IQ. Because this is the first time these variables have been examined in early childhood, interactions with age were also examined. Deprivation, but not threat was associated with worse performance on the cognitive control task. Threat, but not deprivation interacted with age to predict fear learning. Young children who experienced high levels of threat showed evidence of fear learning measured by differential skin conductance response even at the earliest age measured. In contrast, for children not exposed to threat, fear learning emerged only in older ages. Children who experienced higher levels of threat also showed blunted reactivity measured by amplitude of skin conductance response to the reinforced stimuli regardless of age. Results suggest differential influences of deprivation and threat on cognitive and emotional outcomes even in early childhood. Future work should examine the neural mechanisms underlying these behavioral changes and link changes with increased risk for negative outcomes associated with adversity exposure, such as psychopathology.
PDF McLaughlin, K. A., DeCross, S. N., Jovanovic, T., & Tottenham, N. (2019).
Mechanisms linking childhood adversity with psychopathology: Learning as an intervention target.
Behaviour Research and Therapy ,
118, 101–109.
Publisher's VersionAbstractExposure to childhood adversity is common and a powerful risk factor for many forms of psychopathology. In this opinion piece, we argue for greater translation of knowledge about the developmental processes that are influenced by childhood adversity into targeted interventions to prevent the onset of psychopathology. Existing evidence has consistently identified several neurodevelopmental pathways that serve as mechanisms linking adversity with psychopathology. We highlight three domains in which these mechanisms are well-established and point to clear targets for intervention: 1) threat-related social information processing biases; 2) heightened emotional reactivity and difficulties with emotion regulation; and 3) disruptions in reward processing. In contrast to these established pathways, knowledge of how childhood adversity influences emotional learning mechanisms, including fear and reward learning, is remarkably limited. We see the investigation of these mechanisms as a critical next step for the field that will not only advance understanding of developmental pathways linking childhood adversity with psychopathology, but also provide clear targets for behavioral interventions. Knowledge of the mechanisms linking childhood adversity with psychopathology has advanced rapidly, and the time has come to translate that knowledge into clinical interventions to prevent the onset of mental health problems in children who have experienced adversity.
PDF Vilsaint, C. L., NeMoyer, A., Fillbrunn, M., Sadikova, E., Kessler, R. C., Sampson, N. A., Alvarez, K., et al. (2019).
Racial/ethnic differences in 12-month prevalence and persistence of mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders: Variation by nativity and socioeconomic status.
Comprehensive Psychiatry ,
89, 52–60.
Publisher's VersionAbstractBackground Despite equivalent or lower lifetime and past-year prevalence of mental disorder among racial/ethnic minorities compared to non-Latino Whites in the United States, evidence suggests that mental disorders are more persistent among minorities than non-Latino Whites. But, it is unclear how nativity and socioeconomic status contribute to observed racial/ethnic differences in prevalence and persistence of mood, anxiety, and substance disorders. Method Data were examined from a coordinated series of four national surveys that together assessed 21,024 Asian, non-Latino Black, Latino, and non-Latino White adults between 2001 and 2003. Common DSM-IV mood, anxiety, and substance disorders were assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Logistic regression analyses examined how several predictors (e.g., race/ethnicity, nativity, education, income) and the interactions between those predictors were associated with both 12-month disorder prevalence and 12-month prevalence among lifetime cases. For the second series of analyses, age of onset and time since onset were used as additional control variables to indirectly estimate disorder persistence. Results Non-Latino Whites demonstrated the highest unadjusted 12-month prevalence of all disorder types (p \textless 0.001), though differences were also observed across minority groups. In contrast, Asian, Latino, and Black adults demonstrated higher 12-month prevalence of mood disorders among lifetime cases than Whites (p \textless 0.001) prior to adjustments Once we introduced nativity and other relevant controls (e.g., age, sex, urbanicity), US-born Whites with at least one US-born parent demonstrated higher 12-month mood disorder prevalence than foreign-born Whites or US-born Whites with two foreign parents (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = [0.36, 0.73]); this group also demonstrated higher odds of past-year mood disorder than Asian (OR = 0.59, 95% CI = [0.42, 0.82]) and Black (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = [0.58, 0.83]) adults, but not Latino adults (OR = 0.89, 95% CI = [0.74, 1.06]). Racial/ethnic differences in 12-month mood and substance disorder prevalence were moderated by educational attainment, especially among adults without a college education. Additionally, racial/ethnic minority groups with no more than a high school education demonstrated more persistent mood and substance disorders than non-Latino Whites; these relationships reversed or disappeared at higher education levels. Conclusion Nativity may be a particularly relevant consideration for diagnosing mood disorder among non-Latino Whites; additionally, lower education appears to be associated with increased relative risk of persistent mood and substance use disorders among racial/ethnic minorities compared to non-Latino Whites.
PDF Sumner, J. A., Colich, N. L., Uddin, M., Armstrong, D., & McLaughlin, K. A. (2019).
Early Experiences of Threat, but Not Deprivation, Are Associated With Accelerated Biological Aging in Children and Adolescents.
Biological Psychiatry ,
85 (3), 268–278.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Background: Recent conceptual models argue that early life adversity (ELA) accelerates development, which may contribute to poor mental and physical health outcomes. Evidence for accelerated development in youths comes from studies of telomere shortening or advanced pubertal development following circumscribed ELA experiences and neuroimaging studies of circuits involved in emotional processing. It is unclear whether all ELA is associated with accelerated development across global metrics of biological aging or whether this pattern emerges following specific adversity types.
Methods: In 247 children and adolescents 8 to 16 years of age with wide variability in ELA exposure, we evaluated the hypothesis that early environments characterized by threat, but not deprivation, would be associated with accelerated development across two global biological aging metrics: DNA methylation (DNAm) age and pubertal stage relative to chronological age. We also examined whether accelerated development explained associations of ELA with depressive symptoms and externalizing problems.
Results: Exposure to threat-related ELA (e.g., violence) was associated with accelerated DNAm age and advanced pubertal stage, but exposure to deprivation (e.g., neglect, food insecurity) was not. In models including both ELA types, threat-related ELA was uniquely associated with accelerated DNAm age (β = .18) and advanced pubertal stage (β = .28), whereas deprivation was uniquely associated with delayed pubertal stage (β = -.21). Older DNAm age was related to greater depressive symptoms, and a significant indirect effect of threat exposure on depressive symptoms was observed through DNAm age.
Conclusions: Early threat-related experiences are particularly associated with accelerated biological aging in youths, which may be a mechanism linking ELA with depressive symptoms.
Platt, J. M., Keyes, K. M., McLaughlin, K. A., & Kaufman, A. S. (2019).
Intellectual disability and mental disorders in a US population representative sample of adolescents.
Psychological Medicine ,
81, 449-457.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Most research on the prevalence, distribution, and psychiatric comorbidity of intellectual disability (ID) relies on clinical samples, limiting the generalizability and utility of ID assessment in a legal context. This study assessed ID prevalence in a population-representative sample of US adolescents and examined associations of ID with socio-demographic factors and mental disorders.
METHODS: Data were drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement (N = 6256). ID was defined as: (1) IQ ? 76, measured using the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test; (2) an adaptive behavior score ?76, and (3) age of onset ?18 measured using a validated scale. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview assessed 15 lifetime mental disorders. The Sheehan disability scale assessed disorder severity. We used logistic regression models to estimate differences in lifetime disorders for adolescents with and without ID.
RESULTS: ID prevalence was 3.2%. Among adolescents with ID, 65.1% met lifetime criteria for a mental disorder. ID status was associated with specific phobia, agoraphobia, and bipolar disorder, but not behavior disorders after adjustment for socio-demographics. Adolescents with ID and mental disorders were significantly more likely to exhibit severe impairment than those without ID.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight how sample selection and overlap between ID and psychopathology symptoms might bias understanding of the mental health consequences of ID. For example, associations between ID and behavior disorders widely reported in clinical samples were not observed in a population-representative sample after adjustment for socio-demographic confounders. Valid assessment and understanding of these constructs may prove influential in the legal system by influencing treatment referrals and capital punishment decisions.General Scientific SummaryCurrent definitions of intellectual disability (ID) are based on three criteria: formal designation of low intelligence through artificial problem-solving tasks, impairment in one's ability to function in his/her social environment, and early age of onset. In a national population sample of adolescents, the majority of those with ID met criteria for a lifetime mental disorder. Phobias and bipolar disorder, but not behavior disorders, were elevated in adolescents with ID. Findings highlight the need to consider how behavioral problems are conceptualized and classified in people with ID.
Dennison, M. J., Rosen, M. L., Sambrook, K. A., Jenness, J. L., Sheridan, M. A., & McLaughlin, K. A. (2019).
Differential Associations of Distinct Forms of Childhood Adversity With Neurobehavioral Measures of Reward Processing: Neurodevelopmental Pathways to Depression.
Child Development ,
90 (1), e96-e113.
Publisher's VersionAbstractChildhood adversity is associated with altered reward processing, but little is known about whether this varies across distinct types of adversity. In a sample of 94 children (6-19 years), we investigated whether experiences of material deprivation, emotional deprivation, and trauma have differential associations with reward-related behavior and white matter microstructure in tracts involved in reward processing. Material deprivation (food insecurity), but not emotional deprivation or trauma, was associated with poor reward performance. Adversity-related influences on the integrity of white matter microstructure in frontostriatal tracts varied across childhood adversity types, and reductions in frontostriatal white matter integrity mediated the association of food insecurity with depressive symptoms. These findings document distinct behavioral and neurodevelopmental consequences of specific forms of adversity that have implications for psychopathology risk.
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