2-137 - Multisystem Physiological Stress Reactivity and Psychopathology of Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The human stress response encompasses a dynamic orchestration of physiological systems including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axes (Shirtcliff et al., 2015) and the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) branches of the autonomic nervous system (Porges, 2007). We advance an innovative multi-system developmental framework where basal physiological and stress reactivity profiles of interrelated systems are evaluated as risk factors for a variety of mental health problems during adolescence and emerging adulthood. In adults, higher basal testosterone-to-lower cortisol reactivity ratio has been associated with externalizing psychopathology (Glenn et al., 2011). However, in Talk 1, a lower basal testosterone-to-cortisol reactivity ratio predicted the emergence of externalizing problems and substance use in typically developing adolescents. In Talk 2, relational victimization was associated with heightened depressive symptoms only among emerging adults who exhibited patterns of coactivation and coinhibition of the SNS and PNS. These autonomic profiles signal physiological dysregulation (El-Sheikh et al., 2009). In Talk 3, adolescent girls who self-injure showed attenuated HPA reactivity to social evaluation, while higher baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was predictive of lower rates of prospective engagement in self-injury. Longitudinal analyses (Talks 1 & 3) indicated differential predictive utility of biomarkers. We demonstrate that patterns of cross-system physiological interplay and risk profiles in adolescence sometimes differ from those of adulthood. Discussion of neural and physiological circuitries portending multisystem biopsychosocial risk for psychopathology will be anchored in ackowledgment of mechanisms instantiating environmental and social stress.

Sub Unit

• Biology and Neuroscience

Chair

• Leigh Ann Holterman, University of Vermont

Individual Presentations

• Boys’ testosterone-to-cortisol responsivity ratio and externalizing and substance use problems in adolescence and early adulthood - Presenting Author: Kristine Marceau, Purdue University; Leslie A Brick, Division of Behavior Genetics, Rhode Island Hospital and Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University; Ralph E. Tarter, University of Pittsburgh

• Relational victimization and depressive symptoms: The role of autonomic nervous system reactivity in emerging adults - Presenting Author: Leigh Ann Holterman, University of Vermont; Dianna Murray-Close, University at Vermont

• Distinct Biomarkers Differentiating Prior History of and Prospective Risk for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Adolescent Girls. - Georges Han, University of California, Davis; Matteo Giletta, Tilburg University; Jonathan Helm, University of California, Davis; Matthew K. Nock, Harvard University; Karen D. Rudolph, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign; Mitchell J. Prinstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Presenting Author: Paul David Hastings, University of California, Davis