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和最昂贵的。一项紧迫的公共卫生需求是确定在增加个人患抑郁症的脆弱性方面发挥作用的因素。父母患有抑郁症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。该综合项目旨在研究可能提高11 - 14岁未患抑郁症的母亲有复发性重度抑郁症病史的女儿患精神病理风险的生物学、认知和社会心理因素和机制。我们将把这组女孩的功能与另外两组年龄相匹配的女儿的功能进行比较：一组是由复发性抑郁症母亲所生的患有抑郁症的女儿，另一组是由没有精神病理史的母亲所生的从未患过抑郁症的女儿。我们建议评估对理解抑郁母亲的女儿的精神病理风险增加至关重要的两个广义结构：(1)女儿对环境中压力源的感知和评价，这决定了她们对压力源的即时反应；(2)女儿对应激源的调节能力，这决定了应激源暴露的长期后果。我们的研究是独一无二的，它结合了脑成像技术，测量白天和反应性皮质醇水平，评估信息处理偏差，以及评估抑郁母亲的女儿情绪失调和压力反应的自我报告措施。从素质-压力的角度出发，我们将在评估感兴趣的构念之前管理压力和情绪诱导程序。我们还将进行18个月的随访评估，以检查在非抑郁状态下评估的压力反应和情绪调节困难是否预测抑郁发作的发生和/或复发。这些数据有望帮助我们更全面地了解压力反应、神经内分泌功能、情绪调节、认知过程和神经反应模式在将抑郁母亲的孩子置于情感障碍高风险中的相互作用，并将确定功能障碍的关键领域，这些领域可能作为预防计划的目标。

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.