Ecological stress, amygdala reactivity, and internalizing symptoms in preadolescence: Is parenting a buffer?

Abstract

Ecological stress during adolescent development may increase the sensitivity to negative emotional processes that can contribute to the onset and progression of internalizing behaviors during preadolescence. Although a small number of studies have considered the link among the complex relations in ecological stress, amygdala reactivity and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence, these studies have largely been small, cross-sectional, and often do not consider unique roles of parenting or sex. In the current study, we evaluated the interrelations among ecological stress, amygdala functioning, subsequent internalizing symptoms, and the moderating roles of parenting and sex, 9-and 10-year old preadolescents from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (ABCD). A subset of participants who met a priori quality control criteria for bilateral amygdala during the N-back faces versus places contrast (N = 7,385;Mean Age = 120 months, SD = 7.52; 49.5% Female) were included in the study. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to create a latent variable of ecological stress, and multiple Structural Equation Model (SEM) models were conducted to evaluate the association among baseline ecological stress and internalizing symptoms one year later, the mediating role of amygdala activity, and moderating effects of parental acceptance and sex. The results revealed a significant association among ecological stress and subsequent internalizing symptoms, which was greater in males than females. There was no association between amygdala activity and ecological stress or subsequent internalizing symptoms, and no mediating role of amygdala, or moderating effect of parental acceptance, on the association between ecological stress and internalizing symptoms. An alternative mediation model was tested and revealed that parental acceptance mediated the association between ecological stress and internalizing symptoms, demonstrating lower internalizing symptoms among preadolescents one year later. Given the 4 Ecological stress, amygdala reactivity, and internalizing problems lack of association in brain function, ecological stress and internalizing symptoms in this registered report, effects from small studies should be reconsidered in larger samples.

Mediating effect of pubertal stages on the family environment and neurodevelopment: An open-data replication and multiverse analysis of an ABCD Study®

“…These decisions can be considered as ‘researcher degrees of freedom’ ( Simmons et al, 2011 ). While the decisions in Thijssen et al (2020) were consistent with the theory that motivated the study, other studies measuring environmental experiences in the ABCD study (as we, Demidenko et al (2021) , and others ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Ip et al, 2022 ; Petrican et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ) have done may reasonably impose different decisions that may contribute to different results and conclusions. Thus, given the rich higher-order model in Thijssen et al (2020) , we first perform a replication of the original study using the full baseline data.…”

“…To date, investigations using the ABCD study data have drawn upon different measures of the family environment and puberty when studying neurodevelopment. For instance, studies focused on neurodevelopment have used latent factors of the family environment ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ), bio-psycho-social ecologies ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ), neighborhood and family income/stress ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; Ip et al, 2022 ; Sripada et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ) and material deprivation/threat/social support ( DeJoseph et al, 2022 ; Petrican et al, 2021 ), or individual scales of family-to-needs ratios ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Rakesh et al, 2021), poverty levels ( Ellwood-Lowe et al, 2021 ), parental education ( Rakesh et al, 2021a , b ), area deprivation indices (Rakesh et al, 2021; Rakesh et al, 2021) and parental acceptance (Rakesh et al, 2021). As for measures of pubertal development (see reviews regarding measures and correspondence of pubertal scales: Cheng et al (2021) and Herting et al (2021) ), published works using ABCD data have used parent-reported pubertal development ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; McNeilly et al, 2021 ; Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ) or youth/parent reported averages of pubertal development ( Petrican et al, 2021 ).…”

“…For instance, studies focused on neurodevelopment have used latent factors of the family environment ( Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ), bio-psycho-social ecologies ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ), neighborhood and family income/stress ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; Ip et al, 2022 ; Sripada et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2020 ) and material deprivation/threat/social support ( DeJoseph et al, 2022 ; Petrican et al, 2021 ), or individual scales of family-to-needs ratios ( Gonzalez et al, 2020 ; Rakesh et al, 2021), poverty levels ( Ellwood-Lowe et al, 2021 ), parental education ( Rakesh et al, 2021a , b ), area deprivation indices (Rakesh et al, 2021; Rakesh et al, 2021) and parental acceptance (Rakesh et al, 2021). As for measures of pubertal development (see reviews regarding measures and correspondence of pubertal scales: Cheng et al (2021) and Herting et al (2021) ), published works using ABCD data have used parent-reported pubertal development ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ; McNeilly et al, 2021 ; Thijssen et al, 2020 , 2022 ) or youth/parent reported averages of pubertal development ( Petrican et al, 2021 ). Given variations in the analytic choices regarding measures of the family environment and puberty, the overall goal of the current analysis is to use a multiverse approach to understand the nuanced associations among stressful family environmental experiences, puberty and neurodevelopment when using broad measures (i.e., latent factors) that are comprised of multiple scales as well as specific measures (i.e., individual scales) that are based on individual scales.…”

Associations among negative life events, changes in cortico-limbic connectivity, and psychopathology in the ABCD Study

“…Another recent ABCD study similarly did not find a buffering effect of parental acceptance against ecological stress. Specifically, the interaction between ecological stress and parental acceptance was not significantly associated with amygdala reactivity during the emotional EN-back task ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ). It is possible that this specific index of caregiving (i.e., five items from the CRPBI) may not be capturing the more nuanced ways in which caregivers can protect against adversity, particularly with regard to the specific cortico-limbic connections considered in our analyses.…”

An update on the assessment of culture and environment in the ABCD Study®: Emerging literature and protocol updates over three measurement waves

“…The Culture and Environment working group (CE WG), described previously ( Zucker et al, 2018 ), is responsible for selecting measures and monitoring data pertaining to cultural factors and the social environment. To our knowledge, there are at least 17 published studies to date using CE measures, covering unique associations between family factors (e.g., conflict, monitoring, acceptance/warmth) and amygdala reactivity ( Demidenko et al, 2021 ); suicidality ( Janiri et al, 2020 ), maladaptive guilt ( Donohue et al, 2020 ), eating disorders ( Kerr et al, 2021 ), and early substance exposure ( Wang et al, 2021 ). In addition, school factors and prosocial behavior appear uniquely associated with general psychopathology, accounting for comorbidities across internalizing and externalizing behaviors ( Brislin et al, 2021 ).…”