The neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal in adolescence: Associations with adversity and depressive symptoms

Theoretical models implicate early adversity as a potent risk factor for alterations in emotion regulation and its neural correlates, creating a pathway toward depressive disorders. This study investigated this proposed pathway in adolescent girls, a demographic sample known to be at heightened risk for depression. Through the use of a novel cognitive reappraisal paradigm that incorporated social stimuli salient to this population, this multimethod study examined task effects associated with the paradigm as well as how behavioral and neural correlates were associated with early life adversity and depressive symptoms. Results revealed unique patterns of activation and connectivity specific to the type of cognitive reappraisal tactic employed, with reframing recruiting top-down emotion regulation and attentional control processes and immersing recruiting bottom-up sensory and social/salience processing. When examining individual differences, analyses revealed that adversity was associated with a behavioral index of disrupted reappraisal while depressive symptoms were associated with a neural index of disrupted reappraisal. However, formal investigations of whether the behavioral and neural indexes of reappraisal account for the relationship between early adversity and depressive symptoms were not conducted due to the lack of significant associations for all paths within each of these models. These findings enhance our understanding of the role of an adaptive regulation strategy in altering risk for psychopathology among adolescent girls.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Skymba, Haley V

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rudolph, Karen D
• Heller, Wendy
• Cohen, Joseph
• Sadaghiani, Sepideh
• Telzer, Eva H

• Adolescence
• Adversity
• Cognitive Reappraisal
• Depression

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Haley Skymba

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125815

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F125815