Stress Regulation and Psychopathology in Adolescents

描述(由申请人提供)：通过这份有指导的职业发展申请中概述的培训，候选人将增进她对发展过程的理解，并朝着成为一名发展性精神病理学家的目标努力。候选人将接受以发展为重点的精神病理学、心理生物学和青少年发展方面的培训，以便成为一名独立的跨学科研究人员，能够回答有关早期经验在形成高危青少年精神病理学方面的作用的问题。候选人将在5年结束时做好更多准备，开始独立研究。这项研究考察了早期和同时的压力暴露在形成青少年的压力调节和精神病理学风险的发展中的作用。这项研究调查了受虐待和国际收养的收容后儿童的早期应激暴露，以探索早期应激是否单独或与同时应激一起导致内分泌失调是必要的。这项研究是独一无二的，因为它使用了在不同生态有效的社会背景下测量的多种激素，以表征压力调节。与社会经济地位高的青少年相比，早期压力本身被认为能够改变青少年的压力调节和精神病理风险。将经历早期和同时压力的青少年与类似社会经济阶层的青少年进行比较，以帮助解释早期压力的单独影响。在研究的第一阶段，压力调节的特征是正常的昼夜节律。第二阶段，两年后，旨在严格评估新颖性和社会显着性影响荷尔蒙激活和恢复的能力，从三个基于实验室的测试。跨第一阶段和第二阶段的前瞻性、纵向扩展将使我们能够评估这些青少年精神健康症状和障碍的风险。在青少年早期表现出的精神病理症状被假设为两年后在一部分参与者中出现精神健康障碍。这些障碍最有可能发生在那些表现出压力失调证据的人身上。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Through the training outlined in this Mentored Career Development Application, the candidate will advance her understanding of developmental processes and work toward her goal of becoming a developmental psychopathologist. The candidate will receive developmentally-focused training on psychopathology, psychobiology and adolescent development in order to become an independent interdisciplinary researcher capable of answering questions about the role of early experience in shaping the emergence of psychopathology in adolescents at risk. The candidate will be more prepared at the end of 5 years to embark on independent research. This study examines the role of Early and Concurrent stress exposure in shaping the development of stress regulation and risk for psychopathology in adolescents. This study investigates early stress exposure in maltreated and internationally adopted post-institutionalized children to explore whether early Stress Alone or in combination with Concurrent Stress is necessary to result in endocrine dysregulation. This study is unique because it uses multiple hormones measured across different ecologically-valid social contexts in order to characterize stress regulation. Early Stress Alone is hypothesized to be capable of altering stress regulation and psychopathology risk in adolescents as compared to high socioeconomic status youth. Adolescents who have experienced Early and Concurrent Stress will be compared to adolescents of similar socioeconomic strata to aid interpretation of the Early Stress Alone effects. Stress regulation is characterized as normal diurnal rhythms in the first phase of the study. Phase II, two years later, is designed to rigorously assess the ability of novelty and social salience to influence hormonal activation and recovery from three laboratory based tests. A prospective, longitudinal extension across Phase I and II will allow us to evaluate these adolescents' risk for mental health symptoms and disorders. Psychopathology symptoms expressed in early adolescents are hypothesized to emerge as mental health disorders in a subset of participants two years later. These disorders will be most likely in those who show evidence of stress dysregulation.