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，美国黑人承受着不成比例的心理健康不良社会风险因素的负担，例如生活在暴力的城市环境中，经历经济贫困和歧视。尽管存在这些风险，但美国黑人的抑郁症和焦虑症的终生患病率低于白人。美国黑人对这些心理健康障碍的适应力的原因尚不清楚。这项提案旨在研究累积的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适应力的可能解释。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（年龄20-21岁; 60%黑人，40%白色; 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有关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。将使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）对来自大型研究的120名黑人和120名白色参与者的子集进行应激反应的神经基础评估。这项研究是创新的，因为它提出了一种新的机制来解释美国黑人对抑郁和焦虑的恢复力，结合了内化问题的分类和维度测量，并研究了生理应激反应和调节神经回路在恢复力过程中的作用。这些结果将对我们了解焦虑和抑郁等种族差异、压力恢复力的神经生物学机制以及环境压力、神经和生理反应与负面影响之间的关系产生重要影响。这些发现将为诊断和治疗美国黑人和白色人的心理健康问题指出新的方法。

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.