Attentional Biases for Affective Cues as a Mechanism of Risk in Children of Depressed Mothers

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world and risk for the disorder is especially high in offspring of mothers with depression. Theorists have proposed that the way children process social-emotional information may serve as an important mechanism of risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression. There is growing evidence that children’s biased attention to facial displays of emotion – specifically, attentional avoidance of sad faces – may represent a key mechanism of risk that develops early in life. Although there have been some mixed findings, there is growing evidence across a number of studies that children of mothers with a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) during the child’s life exhibit attentional avoidance of sad faces, which has been proposed as an early emerging emotion regulation strategy. In contrast, there is clear evidence that at-risk and depressed adolescents and adults exhibit difficulty disengaging attention from sad faces. It appears, therefore, that the form and perhaps function of attentional bias shifts across development in at-risk youth. To the extent that this is true, it has significant implications not only for theories of the intergenerational transmission of depression risk but also for prevention and early intervention efforts designed to reduce this risk. Primary Aim 1 of the proposed project is to the clarify the nature and trajectories of attentional biases in offspring of mothers with MDD. We will complete a 2-year, multi-wave study of mothers with and without a history of MDD and their children (aged 7-14 years old at the baseline assessment). At each assessment, we will use innovative, multi-method measures of attentional biases incorporating eye-tracking and direct neural markers of attentional allocation during computer-based tasks and actual mother-offspring interactions. This will allow us to chart trajectories of change in attentional biases between the ages of 7 and 16 to test the hypothesis that they shift from a pattern of attentional avoidance to pattern of difficulty disengaging attention from sad faces as children age into adolescence. Primary Aim 2 is to examine the impact of these attentional biases on youths’ risk for depression and whether this changes across development. Finally, because age-related changes in attentional biases could represent a proxy for other developmental changes that occur during this period, a Secondary Aim is to examine the extent to which changes in attentional bias are predicted by indices of pubertal development (level, timing, tempo) as well as changes in cognitive processes (i.e., rumination) and interpersonal stress that are known to occur during the transition to adolescence and that have been linked to attentional biases. In each of these aims, we will also explore potential bidirectional relations, which could indicate vicious cycles of risk. Finally, for each aim, we will evaluate specificity to maternal and child depression versus other forms of psychopathology. This project will help to not only clarify a key mechanism of risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression, but also highlight how interventions designed to target this risk factor may need to be developmentally tuned to avoid exacerbating rather than mitigating risk.