Multimethod assessment of pubertal timing and associations with internalizing psychopathology in early adolescent girls.

Abstract

Early pubertal timing has consistently been associated with internalizing psychopathology in adolescent girls. Here, we aimed to examine whether the association between timing and mental health outcomes varies by measurement of pubertal timing and internalizing psychopathology, differs between adrenarcheal and gonadarcheal processes, and is stronger concurrently or prospectively. We assessed 174 female adolescents (age 10.0-13.0 at Time 1) twice, with an 18-month interval. Participants provided self-reported assessments of depression/anxiety symptoms and pubertal development, subjective pubertal timing, and date of menarche. Their parents/guardians also reported on the adolescent's pubertal development and subjective pubertal timing. We assessed salivary dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone, and estradiol levels and conducted clinical interviews to determine the presence of case level internalizing disorders. From these data, we computed 11 measures of pubertal timing at both time points, as well as seven measures of internalizing psychopathology, and entered these in a Specification Curve Analysis. Overall, earlier pubertal timing was associated with increased internalizing psychopathology. Associations were stronger prospectively than concurrently, suggesting that timing of early pubertal processes might be especially important for later risk of mental illness. Associations were strongest when pubertal timing was based on the Tanner Stage Line Drawings and when the outcome was case-level Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) depression or Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) distress disorders. Timing based on hormone levels was not associated with internalizing psychopathology, suggesting that psychosocial mechanisms, captured by timing measures of visible physical characteristics might be more meaningful determinants of internalizing psychopathology than biological ones in adolescent girls. Future research should precisely examine these psychosocial mechanisms. General Scientific SummaryEarly pubertal timing is a risk factor for the development of anxiety and depression in adolescence. The findings of this article show that this link depends on how pubertal timing is measured and that timing of early pubertal processes might be especially important for later risk of mental illness in adolescent girls. It suggests that psychosocial mechanisms, captured by timing measures of visible physical characteristics, might be more meaningful predictors of depression and anxiety than hormonal ones.

Reward sensitivity and internalizing symptoms during the transition to puberty: An examination of 9-and 10-year-olds in the ABCD Study

“…Notably, robust associations between pubertal timing and internalizing symptoms were only evident when pubertal timing was based on perceived pubertal development, which captures observable physical changes associated with puberty, and not when it was based on testosterone levels. The physical changes that are perceived by others may be particularly relevant when considering potential psychosocial factors that heighten risk for psychopathology during puberty, such as differential treatment or assumptions made about one’s social and cognitive maturity based on observable physical changes ( Barendse et al, 2021 ; Pfeifer and Allen, 2021 ; Rudolph, 2014 ). Previous research has similarly demonstrated an association between internalizing symptoms and psychosocial, but not hormonal, processes during early stages of pubertal development ( Barendse et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The physical changes that are perceived by others may be particularly relevant when considering potential psychosocial factors that heighten risk for psychopathology during puberty, such as differential treatment or assumptions made about one’s social and cognitive maturity based on observable physical changes ( Barendse et al, 2021 ; Pfeifer and Allen, 2021 ; Rudolph, 2014 ). Previous research has similarly demonstrated an association between internalizing symptoms and psychosocial, but not hormonal, processes during early stages of pubertal development ( Barendse et al, 2021 ). However, this interpretation is limited by the fact that, in the current study, physical changes were assessed exclusively using parent report.…”

“…Baseline data from the ABCD Study are well-suited to address the aforementioned gaps in the literature in several critical ways. First, the narrow age range of the ABCD cohort enables examination of pubertal timing (i.e., pubertal maturation relative to adolescents within one’s age cohort) in particular ( Barendse et al, 2021 , Mendle et al, 2010 ). Investigating these associations within a cohort of 9- and 10-year-olds captures variability in the early transitional stages of puberty, a crucial phase for addressing psychosocial risk ( McGuire et al, 2019 ).…”

Pubertal development underlies optimization of inhibitory control through specialization of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

“…We chose to combine these measures due to their high correlation (r = 0.867) and wide use across the literature, indicating no data- or hypothesis-driven reason to choose one over the other. Furthermore, these measures have been combined in previous work ( Barendse et al, 2022 , Ellis et al, 2011 , Ladouceur et al, 2019 ) and a prior study showed excellent agreement between these measures within one stage ( Bond et al, 2006 ).…”

“Puberty age gap”: New method of assessing pubertal timing and its association with mental health problems

“…For example, increasing levels of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) have been linked to internalizing symptoms (Peixoto et al, 2020), while testosterone has been associated with externalizing and disruptive behaviors (Han, Miller, Cole, Zahn-Waxler & Hastings 2015). To the best of our knowledge, only one study has calculated pubertal "Puberty Age gap": A new method of pubertal timing timing with hormone data alone to predict internalizing behaviors in a sample of 174 females (Barendse et al, 2021). Although this study did not find any significant associations, it is important to investigate this in a larger sample of both females and males and assess associations across different dimensions of psychopathology.…”