Neurobiological Mechanisms of Lower Internalizing Disorders in Black Americans

描述（由申请人提供）：与非西班牙裔白人相比，美国黑人在心理健康状况不佳的社会风险因素方面承担着不成比例的负担，例如生活在暴力的城市环境中，经历经济剥夺和歧视。尽管存在这些风险，美国黑人一生中患抑郁症和焦虑症的比例仍低于白人。美国黑人能够抵御这些心理健康障碍的原因尚不清楚。这一提议旨在检验累积逆境和随后减少的神经生物学应激反应，作为美国黑人对焦虑和抑郁的恢复力的可能解释。它还旨在研究这种弹性背后的神经机制。这些目标将通过对来自现有社区样本的1,306名年轻人（20-21岁，60%黑人，40%白人，50%女性）进行研究访谈来实现，这些年轻人在童年和青春期曾接受过三次评估。这些研究访谈将提供参与者所经历的逆境的信息，内化痛苦的分类诊断和维度测量，以及对压力反应的生理指标。应激反应的神经基础将通过功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）对来自大型研究的120名黑人和120名白人参与者进行评估。本研究的创新之处在于，它提出了一种解释美国黑人抑郁和焦虑心理弹性的新机制，结合了内化问题的分类和维度测量，并考察了生理应激反应和调节神经回路在心理弹性过程中的作用。研究结果将对我们理解焦虑和抑郁的种族差异、压力恢复力的神经生物学机制、环境压力、神经和生理反应以及负面影响之间的关系具有重要意义。这些发现将指出诊断和治疗美国黑人和白人心理健康问题的新方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, Black Americans carry a disproportionate burden of social risk factors for poor mental health, such as living in violent urban environments and experiencing economic deprivation and discrimination. Despite these risks, Black Americans have lower lifetime prevalence of depressive and anxiety disorders than Whites. The reasons for Black Americans' resilience to these mental health disorders are unknown. This proposal aims to examine cumulative adversity and subsequent diminished neurobiological stress response as a possible explanation of Black Americans' resilience to anxiety and depression. It also aims to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this resilience. These aims will be accomplished by conducting research interviews with 1,306 young adults (age 20-21; 60% Black, 40% White; 50% female) from an existing community sample who have been previously assessed three times during childhood and adolescence. These research interviews will provide information on adversity experienced by the participants, categorical diagnoses and dimensional measures of internalizing distress, and physiological indicators of reactivity to stress. Neural bases of stress response will be evaluated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for a subset of 120 Black and 120 White participants from the larger study. This study is innovative because it proposes to test a novel mechanism explaining the resilience of Black Americans to depression and anxiety, incorporates both categorical and dimensional measures of internalizing problems, and examines the role of physiological stress response and regulatory neural circuit in the resilience process. The results will have important implications for our understanding of racial disparities i anxiety and depression, neurobiological mechanisms underlying resilience to stress, and relationships between environmental stress, neural and physiological response, and negative affect. These findings will point to novel ways to diagnose and treat mental health problems in Black and White Americans.