Poster #17 - Neural Response to Social Exclusion, Depressive Symptoms, and Substance Use in Mexican-Origin Adolescents

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Integrative Statement

Rejection may be a common experience for adolescents, as an estimated 41% report at least one exclusion experience in the past two months (Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). Neural response to exclusion experiences has been linked to global risk behavior (Falk et al., 2014; Peake et al., 2013; Rudolph, Miernicki, Troop-Gordon, Davis, & Telzer, 2016; Simons-Morton, 2014), and depressive symptoms to substance use (Degenhardt, Hall, & Lynskey, 2001; Swendsen & Merikangas, 2000).

Social exclusion relates to heightened substance experimentation and abuse (Peake et al., 2013; Vijayakumar, Cheng, & Pfeifer, 2017; Wasylyshyn et al., 2018). Chronically-rejected children show more substance use as adolescents (Silk et al., 2014). Response to social exclusion varies, as some people are affected more deeply (Rudolph et al., 2016), which may be based in neural systems of fear of negative social evaluation, such as the subgenual (sgACC) and dorsal (dACC) regions of the anterior cingulate cortex (Guyer, McClure-Tone, Shiffrin, Pine, & Nelson, 2009; Schriber & Guyer, 2016).

Regarding Latinx samples specifically, one study reported that depression predicts heightened risk of substance use in white adolescents, but not Cuban and other Hispanic adolescents (Vega, Zimmerman, Warheit, Apsopori, & Gil, 1993). Accordingly, the present study aims to test how depressive symptoms influence substance use in a Mexican-origin sample, and how that pattern may be more pronounced for adolescents with heightened neural response to social exclusion experiences.

This project is a report of preliminary findings. The main hypothesis is that depressive symptoms will be positively associated with substance use overall, but that neural response to exclusion will moderation this relation, in that high sensitivity in the brain is associated with greater substance use in depressed adolescents, compared to those lower in symptoms.

Participants included 165 adolescents (49% female; Mage at MRI scan = 17.16 years, SD = 0.41), from a sub-study of the California Families Project, a 10-year, longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth. The sub-study examined neurobiological mechanisms of depression in 229 participants. Measures involved use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs across 4 waves; the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (MASQ; wave 7, 11th grade), and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan during Cyberball (Williams & Jarvis, 2006), involving exclusion.

Results indicated that general distress and anhedonic depression (subscales of the MASQ) predicted some substance use outcomes, including probability of ever using cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana by the time of the MRI scan (but not use within the past 30 days). Neural response to social exclusion as a main effect did not predict substance use. There was one marginally-significant interaction, between right subACC response to exclusion and anhedonic depression symptoms as they predict probability of using marijuana by the 11th grade (see Figure 1). Additionally, one example of a main effect of anhedonic depression on substance use can be seen in Figure 2.

The discussion will center on the importance of peer context in both depression and substance use. Future findings may contribute toward our understanding of neurobiological origins of substance use risk and depression, supporting interventions.

Authors

• Sarah Jean Beard, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Richard W. Robins, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Hastings, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rajpreet Chahal, University of California Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Gerrick Weissman, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amanda Guyer, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author