Stress and parenting predict changes in adolescent respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

Adolescence is a critical period for the development of physiological emotion regulatory systems. While stressful life experiences are known to inhibit adaptive regulation, less is known about how parental socialization of emotion regulation may affect this relation. We examined the effect of stressful life experiences on changes in the resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) levels of 107 (Mage  = 12.84, SD = 0.85) young adolescents over a year, moderated by supportive parental responses to negative emotions. The significant interaction (B = 0.02, p = 0.04) indicated that young adolescents who experienced low levels of supportive parenting in the context of high levels of stressful life experiences showed significant decreases in resting RSA over the year, while adolescents who experienced high levels of supportive parenting showed minimal decreases in RSA. Thus, more supportive parenting significantly compensated for the effect of greater stressful life experiences on changes in resting RSA over time.

Physiological Self-Regulation Buffers the Relationship between Impulsivity and Externalizing Behaviors among Nonclinical Adolescents.

Trait impulsivity is a risk factor for rule breaking and aggressive (externalizing) behaviors among nonclinical youth. Buffers of trait-based risk are of practical interest to preventing externalizing behaviors. One such buffer may be the capacity and efforts of a child to self-regulate their physiology. Youth who possess baseline physiological self-regulatory capacities are more likely to maintain adaptive engagement with their environment and may be less prone to impulsively rule break or be aggressive. Similarly, youth who are able to use self-regulatory skills to calm their physiology in times of stress may be less likely to externalize distress. This study examined self-regulatory capacity and efforts as a moderator of the relationship between trait impulsivity and externalizing behaviors, cross-sectionally and prospectively. We hypothesized that the effect of trait impulsivity on externalizing behaviors would depend on the presence of baseline self-regulatory capacity and/or self-regulatory efforts during stress. Participants were 134 nonclinical adolescents (Mage = 12.59, SD = 1.20 51.9% female, 71% Caucasian). Trait impulsivity was measured using a parental report questionnaire. Physiological self-regulatory capacity and efforts were measured through collection of electrocardiogram data during a resting baseline and a stressful, unsolvable anagram task, respectively. Physiological self-regulation was quantified by calculating respiratory sinus arrhythmia scores across baseline and stress tasks. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is the change in heart rate across the breathing cycle, and is hypothesized to index physiological self-regulation capacity and efforts under specific conditions. The results indicated that physiological self-regulation capacity, but not efforts, moderated the effect of trait impulsivity on externalizing behaviors prospectively. Stronger physiological self-regulatory capacity buffered the effect of greater trait impulsivity. Implications of these findings among typically developing youth are discussed.

Pre-ejection period reactivity to reward is associated with anhedonic symptoms of depression among adolescents.

Pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity to reward has been posited as a specific index of behavioral approach and incentive motivation, suggesting it might be uniquely associated with the affective and motivational deficits of anhedonia. This study evaluated PEP reactivity to a reward task as a predictor of depressive symptoms among adolescents, examining global depressive symptoms as well as specific anhedonic and nonanhedonic symptoms clusters. Participants included 76 adolescents, ages 11-15 years (52% female). This study found marginal support for an association between PEP reactivity to reward and concurrent anhedonia symptoms, but no association with nonanhedonic or the global scale. Findings are discussed in terms of potential associations between peripheral psychophysiological measures and dopaminergic functioning and also the utility of this measure for future research on anhedonia.

Disentangling vulnerabilities from outcomes: Distinctions between trait affect and depressive symptoms in adolescent and adult samples.

BACKGROUND: Trait negative affect and trait positive affect are affective vulnerabilities to depressive symptoms in adolescence and adulthood. While trait affect and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are proposed to be theoretically distinct, no studies have established that these constructs are statistically distinct. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to determine whether the trait affect (e.g. temperament dimensions) that predicts depressive symptoms and the state affect characteristic of depressive symptoms are statistically distinct among early adolescents and adults. We hypothesized that trait negative affect, trait positive affect, and depressive symptoms would represent largely distinct factors in both samples. METHOD: Participants were 268 early adolescents (53.73% female) and 321 young adults (70.09% female) who completed self-report measures of demographic information, trait affect, and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation for both samples indicated distinct adolescent factor loadings and overlapping adult factor loadings. Confirmatory factor analyses in both samples supported distinct but related relationships between trait NA, trait PA, and depressive symptoms. LIMITATIONS: Study limitations include our cross-sectional design that prevented examination of self-reported fluctuations in trait affect and depressive symptoms and the unknown potential effects of self-report biases among adolescents and adults. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support existing theoretical distinctions between adolescent constructs but highlight a need to revise or remove items to distinguish measurements of adult trait affect and depressive symptoms. Adolescent trait affect and depressive symptoms are statistically distinct, but adult trait affect and depressive symptoms statistically overlap and warrant further consideration.

Examining biological vulnerability in environmental context: Parenting moderates effects of low resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia on adolescent depressive symptoms.

Polyvagal theory suggests that parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function, indexed by resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), may be a marker of emotion regulatory capacity and associated with youth psychopathology. Contemporary models of psychopathology suggest that the effects of biological vulnerability may be moderated by developmental context. The aim of the present study was to examine whether parenting, particularly parental responses to youth's negative emotions, moderated the effects of resting RSA on depressive symptoms among early adolescents. We examined resting RSA, depressive symptoms, and parental responses to youth negative emotions among 120 adolescents aged 11-14 years (M = 12.86, SD = .85; 52.5% female). Resting RSA and lack of supportive parenting interacted to predict youth depressive symptoms, such that low resting RSA predicted more depressive symptoms only in the context of low levels of supportive parental responses to youth's negative emotions. By contrast, high resting RSA buffered the effects of low supportive parenting on youth depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of understanding joint contributions of biological vulnerability and developmental context on youth depression outcomes.