Poster #22 - Exploring Associations between Adversity Exposure, Psychopathology, and Neurodevelopment through Person Centered Analysis

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

It is well established that exposure to adversity early in development is associated with subsequent risk for psychopathology, differences in neurocognitive functioning, and well-being across the lifespan (McEwen, 2003; Duffy et al., 2018). Models of early life adversity and developmental psychopathology aim to uncover mechanistic pathways that predict later risk and resiliency, with the goal of informing prevention and intervention. Cumulative risk models (Gerard & Beuhler, 2004) posit that it is the additive risk of stressful experiences that impact development. Dimensional models, such as Threat-Deprivation (McLaughlin et al., 2014) and Harshness-Unpredictability (Belsky at el., 2012), consider qualitative differences between types of adverse experiences and psychological functioning. Other frameworks, such as the buffering (Cohen & Wills, 1985) and differential susceptibility (Ellis et al., 2011) hypotheses attempt to model individual differences in sensitivity to adverse experiences, as well as potential non-linear, interacting effects of developmental timing. While these models have yielded some empirical support, they may not fully capture interactions between developmental and risk factors or generalize across study samples. In order to better understand mechanisms of risk and resilience for the development of psychopathology, studies should leverage advanced statistical techniques to conduct person-centered analyses (Howard & Hoffman, 2018), such as latent profile analysis. Person centered analyses provide a novel analytic approach to understand complex links between multiple measures of stress and psychological functioning. To date, limited work (Brieant et al., 2022; King et al., 2018) has used this approach to understand heterogeneity in stress exposure and associations with mental health, neural development, and socio-cognitive outcomes. Few studies have examined such profiles of adversity exposure in large, national datasets or replicated patterns of findings across study populations.

Guided by models of early life adversity and developmental psychopathology, the present study will use latent profile analysis in a large sample of youth and caregivers to explore subgroup heterogeneity in adversity exposure and associations with neurodevelopmental correlates. We hypothesize the following subgroups will emerge: “typical” (average levels of stress), “high” (above average reports of stress), “low” (below average reports of stress), and “mixed” (characterized by a mix of above-, below-, and average reports across stress measures). We will then examine sociodemographic characteristics of profiles (i.e., race/ethnicity, SES, development) as well as associations with psychopathology (i.e., internalizing and externalizing symptoms).

Data come from the Healthy Brain Network (HBN; Alexander, 2017). HBN is a large-scale, on-going neuroimaging study examining normative and atypical development in over 3,000 youth ages 5 to 21. For the purposes of the current study, we will be using caregiver and youth reported measures of stress and adversity exposure across several domains (i.e., parenting, socioeconomic processes, environmental factors): Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, Parental Stress Inventory, Negative Life Events scale, Barratt Social Status questionnaire, Financial Support Index. These measures will be used to create latent profiles of stressful life experiences. Once profiles are created, we will explore associations with demographic information (household income, child sex, child age, household composition) and measures of youth psychopathology (Youth Self Report, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire).

Authors

• Kelly R Barry, University of Houston
  Presenting Author

• Johanna R Bick, University of Houston