1-060 - Neurobiological Influences of Parenting in Emotionally Salient Contexts: Implications for Adolescent Physical and Mental Health

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Social contexts, including the family environment, are known to influence adolescent physical and mental health. Little is known, however, about the mechanisms underlying such influences. This symposium examines how parenting strategies used during emotionally charged situations affect levels of inflammation and brain function associated with emotion processing and self-regulation in typically developing and anxious adolescents. The first paper focuses on the effects of parenting on adolescent health. It includes findings from a large community cohort from the Adolescent Development Study based in Melbourne, Australia and shows that positive parenting during conflictual and positive interactional tasks predicts lower levels of inflammation. Such findings are important as they demonstrate the protective effects of positive parenting on adolescent physical health. The second paper features data in typically developing adolescents integrating observed parental behaviors during anxiety-provoking situations and fMRI data during an emotion processing task. Results suggest that offspring whose parents actively socialize coping responses during stressful situations show reduced amygdala activation to threat-related stimuli and recruit less regulatory brain regions. The third paper presents data showing that adolescents with an anxiety disorder who exhibit greater error-related brain activity tend to have parents who use frequent coping statements while completing a mother-child interaction task that elicits high levels of anxiety. Discussion of these papers centers on the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to elucidating the potential social and neurobiological mechanisms underlying the development of adolescent psychopathology, and on the potential of family-based interventions to influence physical and mental health outcomes during adolescence.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh

Discussant

• Nicholas Allen, University of Oregon

Individual Presentations

• Protective Effects of Positive Parenting on Adolescent Health: Observed Parenting Behavior Predicts Later Inflammation - Presenting Author: Michelle L. Byrne, Univ of Oregon; Sally Horne, University of Melbourne; Orli S. Schwartz, University of Melbourne; Sarah Lauren Whittle, University of Melbourne; Julian Guy Simmons, University of Melbourne; Lisa Sheeber, Oregon Research Institute; Nicholas Allen, University of Oregon

• Parental Socialization of Anxiety is Associated with Early Adolescents’ Neural Response to Threat - Presenting Author: Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh; Rosalind D Elliott, Univ of Pittsburgh; Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh; Ronald E Dahl, University of California, Berkeley; Erika E Forbes, Univ. of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Neal D. Ryan, University of Pittsburgh; Greg J. Siegle, University of Pittsburgh

• Parenting Strategies during a Stressful Event are Linked to Error-related Brain Activity in Anxious Youth - Presenting Author: Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh; Patricia Zhi-tei Tan, UCLA School of Medicine; Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh; Kristy Benoit Allen, University of Pittsburgh; Vinod Sharma, University of Pittsburgh; Greg J. Siegle, University of Pittsburgh; Ronald E Dahl, University of California, Berkeley; Neal D. Ryan, University of Pittsburgh