Early psychosocial deprivation and risk taking among adolescents in Romania

描述（由申请人提供）：青春期是一个与危险行为急剧增加相关的发育期，包括物质使用和其他潜在的健康危害行为。已经进行了广泛的研究，以确定可能增加青少年参与危险行为的脆弱性的因素。在这些因素中，早期逆境及其对神经、社会认知和情感领域的发展影响通常与犯罪行为和冒险的脆弱性增加有关。虽然心理社会逆境和参与冒险行为之间的关系已经很好地建立，道德和实际问题限制了我们进行实验研究的能力，可以直接调查心理社会逆境对冒险行为的因果作用。因此，我们对这种关系的性质及其背后的机制的了解仍然有限。根据这项国际合作申请的目标，本研究旨在解决这些局限性，并评估早期心理社会逆境对青少年冒险的影响，以及探索通过行为测量评估的去抑制过程的中介作用。为此，我们将使用一个独特的样本青少年在罗马尼亚谁，在过去的10年里，参加了随机临床试验的寄养/家庭干预，谁现在进入青春期早期。在这项临床试验中，将出生后被遗弃并在罗马尼亚布加勒斯特的机构中长大的婴儿随机分配为从机构中取出并安置在家庭/寄养干预中或留在机构中照常照顾。这些儿童随后被跟踪到8岁，这样的样本已经很好地表征了多个领域的心理社会功能。鉴于样本的独特性以及创新的评估方法，目前的研究代表了一个独特的机会，以了解早期心理社会剥夺如何影响去抑制过程作为风险承担的脆弱性，这反过来可能会提高参与的可能性在青春期的危险行为。这是特别相关的预防和干预努力走向具体的战略，试图找出缺陷，并提供相关的技能发展，这种缺陷。因此，查明造成缺陷和脆弱性的过程的能力对于针对风险最大者的预防和干预措施的制定至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescence is a developmental period associated with a dramatic increase in risky behaviors including substance use and other potentially health-compromising behaviors. Extensive research has been conducted to identify the factors that may heighten the vulnerability for engagement in risk behaviors among adolescents. Among such factors, early adversity and its developmental effects across neural, socio-cognitive, and emotional domains has been often linked to heightened vulnerability for delinquent behaviors and risk taking. Although the relationship between psychosocial adversities and engagement in risk taking behavior has been well established, ethical and practical concerns have limited our ability to conduct experimental research that would allow a direct investigation of the causal role of psychosocial adversities on risk taking. As such, our knowledge about the nature of this relationship and the mechanisms underlying it remains limited. In line with the goals of this international collaboration application, the present study aims to address these limitations and assess the impact of early psychosocial adversities on adolescent risk taking, as well as to explore the mediating role of disinhibitory processes assessed through a behavioral measure. To this aim, we will use a unique sample of adolescents in Romania who, over the past 10 years, participated in a randomized clinical trial of a foster care/family intervention and who are now entering early adolescence. In this clinical trial, infants abandoned since birth and raised in institutions in Bucharest, Romania were randomly assigned either to be removed from the institution and placed into a family/foster care intervention or to be left in the institutions to care as usual. These children were subsequently followed through 8 years of age such that the sample has been well characterized with regard to multiple domains of psychosocial functioning. Given the uniqueness of the sample as well as the innovative assessment approach, the current study represents a unique opportunity to understand how early psychosocial deprivation may impact disinhibitory processes as risk taking vulnerability which may in turn heighten the likelihood of engagement in risky behaviors in adolescence. This is particularly relevant as prevention and intervention efforts move toward idiographic strategies that attempt to identify deficits and provide relevant skill development for such deficits. Thus, the ability to identify the processes underlying deficits and vulnerabilities is crucial for prevention and intervention development targeting those most at risk.