Emotion Dysregulation in Girls at Risk for Depression

描述(由申请人提供)：抑郁症是所有精神疾病中最普遍、最昂贵的疾病之一。一个紧迫的公共卫生需求是确定在增加个人抑郁易感性方面发挥作用的因素。患有抑郁症的父母的后代患这种疾病的风险更高。因此，评估这些儿童对于阐明与这种风险相关的因素和机制至关重要。拟议的综合项目旨在检查生物、认知和心理社会因素和机制，这些因素和机制可能会增加有反复发作严重抑郁障碍病史的母亲的11至14岁的女儿患精神疾病的风险。我们将比较这组女孩和另外两个年龄匹配的女孩的功能：母亲反复患有抑郁症的以前患有抑郁症的女儿，以及母亲没有精神病史的从未患有抑郁症的女儿。我们建议评估两个广泛的结构，这两个结构对于理解抑郁母亲的女儿患精神疾病的风险增加至关重要：(1)女儿对环境中的压力源的感知和评估，这决定了她们对压力源的即时反应；(2)女儿对压力源的反应的调节技能，这决定了暴露在压力源下的长期后果。我们的研究在结合大脑成像技术、测量每日皮质醇水平和反应皮质醇水平、评估信息处理偏差以及自我报告措施来评估抑郁母亲的女儿的情绪失调和应激反应方面是独一无二的。从素质压力的角度来看，我们将在评估感兴趣的结构之前进行压力和情绪诱导程序。我们还将进行为期18个月的跟踪评估，以检查在非抑郁状态下评估的应激反应和情绪调节困难是否预测抑郁发作的开始和/或复发。这些数据有望帮助我们更全面地了解应激反应、神经内分泌功能、情绪调节、认知过程和神经反应模式之间的相互作用，从而使抑郁母亲的孩子处于情感障碍的高危状态，并将确定可能作为预防计划目标的关键功能障碍领域。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Depression is among the most prevalent and costly of all psychiatric disorders. A pressing public health need is to identify factors that play a role in increasing individuals' vulnerability to depression. Offspring of parents with depression are at heightened risk for the development of this disorder. Consequently, assessing these children is of critical importance in elucidating factors and mechanisms associated with this risk. The proposed integrative project is designed to examine biological, cognitive, and psychosocial factors and mechanisms that may elevate the risk for psychopathology in never-disordered 11 - to14-year-old daughters of mothers with a history of recurrent Major Depressive Disorder. We will compare the functioning of this group of girls with that of daughters in two additional age-matched groups: formerly depressed daughters of recurrent depressed mothers, and never-disordered daughters of mothers with no history of psychopathology. We propose to assess two broad constructs that are of critical importance in understanding the increased risk for psychopathology of daughters of depressed mothers: (1) the daughters' perception and evaluation of stressors in their environment, which determine their immediate response to the stressors; and (2) the daughters' regulatory skills in response to the stressors, which determine the long-term consequences of exposure to the stressors. Our study is unique in combining brain imaging techniques, measurement of both diurnal and reactive cortisol levels, assessment of information-processing biases, and self-report measures to assess emotion dysregulation and stress reactivity in daughters of depressed mothers. Working from a diathesis-stress perspective, we will administer stress- and mood-induction procedures prior to assessing the constructs of interest. We will also conduct an 18-month follow-up assessment to examine whether difficulties in stress reactivity and emotion regulation assessed in a nondepressed state predict the onset and/or the recurrence of depressive episodes. These data promise to help us gain a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay of stress reactivity, neuroendocrine functioning, emotion regulation, cognitive processes, and patterns of neural reactivity in placing children of depressed mothers at elevated risk for affective disorder, and will identify critical areas of dysfunction that may serve as targets for prevention programs.