2-073 - Early Adversity, Biology, and Behavior: Examining Biological Consequences and Contingencies of Early Life Stress

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Early exposure to adversity is one of the most potent environmental risks for life course psychopathology, and alterations in stress response systems are hypothesized mechanistic pathways. However, biology can also play a buffering role in contexts of early stress and trauma. Looking across infancy and preschool periods, and across biological systems, the papers in this symposium examine biological consequences of early adversity, as well as biological contingencies associated with development of psychopathology under conditions of early adversity. The first paper highlights the importance of examining multiple systems, demonstrating that morning cortisol predicts early behavior problems specifically in the context of high morning alpha amylase in a high-adversity infancy sample. In the second paper, contingent intergenerational patterns of epigenetic risk from mothers to newborn infants are described, in which infants of mothers with a protective FKBP5 allele and high PTSD symptoms show hypomethylation, consistent with a possible protective effect. Turning to preschool-aged children, the third paper examines whether children’s stress physiology prospectively predicts the development of psychopathology post-trauma. Leveraging biological data collected before children were exposed to a natural disaster, findings suggest that blunted baseline cortisol is a risk factor for subsequent development of PTSD symptomatology. Finally, the fourth paper examines the buffering role of parasympathetic tone in the context of early exposure to violence, with sex-differentiated patterns observed. Together, these papers highlight that early trauma exposure impacts young children’s stress reactivity across biological systems, but also that these biological systems themselves have implications for child behavior in contexts of stress.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Chairs

• Sarah A Gray, Tulane University

• Kristin Bernard, Stony Brook University

Individual Presentations

• Externalizing Behavior and Stress System Functioning in Infants Exposed to Early Adversity: A Multi-system Exploration - Presenting Author: Allison Frost, Stony Brook University; Non-Presenting Author: Melanie Rodriguez, Stony Brook University; Non-Presenting Author: Steven Imrisek, Stony Brook University; Non-Presenting Author: Allison Dash, Power of Two; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin Bernard, Stony Brook University

• Threat-based Adverse Childhood Experiences and FKBP5 Methylation Patterns in Postpartum Women and their Newborn Infants - Presenting Author: Damion Grasso, University of Connecticut School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Jonathan Covault, University of Connecticut School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Amy Johnson, Hartford Hospital; Non-Presenting Author: Stacy Drury, Tulane University School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Garry Lapidus, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center; Non-Presenting Author: Victoria Scranton, University of Connecticut School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Meghan Clough, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center

• Pre-Disaster Salivary Cortisol Prospectively Predicts Post-Disaster Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Children - Presenting Author: Rebecca Lynch, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Amy J. Mikolajewski, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Michael S. Scheeringa, Tulane University

• Protective Effects of Parasympathetic Activity in Violence-exposed Preschoolers: Sex-specific Associations with Behavior Problems - Presenting Author: Sarah A Gray, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Erin Glackin, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Virginia Hatch, Tulane University; Non-Presenting Author: Rebecca Lipschutz, University of Houston