Showing papers by "Brady D. Nelson published in 2021"

Increases in depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The coronavirus [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)] pandemic has introduced extraordinary life changes and stress, particularly in adolescents and young adults. Initial reports suggest that depression and anxiety are elevated during COVID-19, but no prior study has explored changes at the within-person level. The current study explored changes in depression and anxiety symptoms from before the pandemic to soon after it first peaked in Spring 2020 in a sample of adolescents and young adults (N = 451) living in Long Island, New York, an early epicenter of COVID-19 in the U.S. METHODS: Depression (Children's Depression Inventory) and anxiety symptoms (Screen for Child Anxiety Related Symptoms) were assessed between December 2014 and July 2019, and, along with COVID-19 experiences, symptoms were re-assessed between March 27th and May 15th, 2020. RESULTS: Across participants and independent of age, there were increased generalized anxiety and social anxiety symptoms. In females, there were also increased depression and panic/somatic symptoms. Multivariable linear regression indicated that greater COVID-19 school concerns were uniquely associated with increased depression symptoms. Greater COVID-19 home confinement concerns were uniquely associated with increased generalized anxiety symptoms, and decreased social anxiety symptoms, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents and young adults at an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. experienced increased depression and anxiety symptoms, particularly amongst females. School and home confinement concerns related to the pandemic were independently associated with changes in symptoms. Overall, this report suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic is having multifarious adverse effects on the mental health of youth.

Trajectories of depression, anxiety and pandemic experiences; A longitudinal study of youth in New York during the Spring-Summer of 2020.

Abstract: Initial reports suggest that mental health problems were elevated early in the COVID-19 pandemic However, few studies have followed-up participants as the pandemic evolved and examined both between and within person predictors of symptom trajectories In the current study, adolescents and young adults (N=532) in New York were surveyed monthly between March 27th and July 14th, 2020, a period spanning the first peak and subsequent decline in COVID-19 infection rates in the region Surveys assessed symptoms of depression and anxiety using the Child Depression Inventory and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders, as well as experiences related to the pandemic Multilevel growth modeling indicated that symptoms of depression and anxiety peaked around late April/early May and then decreased through May-July Some pandemic experiences followed a similar quadratic trajectory, while others decreased linearly across the study Specific relationships emerged between some types of pandemic experiences and depression and anxiety symptoms While symptoms of depression and anxiety in youth may have been elevated early in the pandemic, these findings suggest they subsided across Spring-Summer of 2020, with higher levels of both corresponding to a period of peak infection rates and decreases paralleling the decline in pandemic experiences and COVID-19 infection rates

Neural Response to Rewards, Stress and Sleep Interact to Prospectively Predict Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls.

Abstract: Blunted reward processing both characterizes major depressive disorder and predicts increases in depressive symptoms. However, little is known about the interaction between blunted reward processing and other risk factors in relation to increases in depressive symptoms. Stressful life events and sleep problems are prominent risk factors that contribute to the etiopathogenesis of depression and have been linked to reward dysfunction; these factors may interact with reward dysfunction to predict increased depressive symptoms. In a large sample of 8- to 14-year-old adolescent girls, the current study examined how blunted reward processing, stressful life events, and sleep problems at baseline interacted to predict increases in depressive symptoms 1 year later. Reward processing was indexed by the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential elicited during a simple monetary reward paradigm (i.e., Doors task). Two-way interactions confirmed that a blunted RewP predicted increased depressive symptoms at (a) high levels of stress but not average or low levels of stress, and (b) high and average levels of sleep problems but not low levels of sleep problems. Finally, a 3-way interaction confirmed that a blunted RewP predicted increased depressive symptoms at high levels of stress and sleep problems but not average or low levels of stress and sleep problems. Thus, adolescents characterized by low reward response (i.e., blunted RewP) were at an increased risk of developing depressive symptoms if they experienced increased stressful life events or sleep problems; moreover, risk was greatest among adolescents characterized by all 3.

Neural response to monetary and social feedback demonstrates differential associations with depression and social anxiety.

Abstract: An aberrant neural response to rewards has been linked to both depression and social anxiety. Most studies have focused on the neural response to monetary rewards, and few have tested different modalities of reward (e.g. social) that are more salient to particular forms of psychopathology. In addition, most studies contain critical confounds, including contrasting positive and negative feedback and failing to disentangle being correct from obtaining positive feedback. In the present study, 204 participants underwent electroencephalography during monetary and social feedback tasks that were matched in trial structure, timing and feedback stimuli. The reward positivity (RewP) was measured in response to correctly identifying stimuli that resulted in monetary win, monetary loss, social like or social dislike feedback. All monetary and social tasks elicited a RewP, which were positively correlated. Across all tasks, the RewP was negatively associated with depression and positively associated with social anxiety. The RewP to social dislike feedback, independent of monetary and social like feedback, was also associated with social anxiety. The present study suggests that a domain-general neural response to correct feedback demonstrates a differential association with depression and social anxiety, but a domain-specific neural response to social dislike feedback is uniquely associated with social anxiety.

Reliability of reward- and error-related brain activity in early childhood

Abstract: Event-related potential (ERP) measures of reward- and error-related brain activity have emerged as potential biomarkers of risk for the development of psychopathology. However, the psychometric properties of reward- and error-related brain activity have been primarily investigated in adolescents and adults. It is critical to also establish the reliability of ERPs in younger children, particularly if they are used as individual difference measures of risk during key developmental periods. The present study examined the reliability of the reward positivity (RewP) and error-related negativity (ERN) among 80 children (Mage = 6.9 years old; 50% female). Participants completed the doors, flanker, and go/no-go tasks twice, separated by approximately 8 months, while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Results indicated that the RewP demonstrated strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The ERN also demonstrated strong internal consistency, but test-retest reliability was only significant for the ERN measured during the flanker task and not the go/no-go task. These results are largely consistent with reported psychometric properties of reward- and error related ERPs in adolescents and adults, suggesting that the ERN and RewP may be appropriate biomarkers of individual differences in populations ranging from early childhood to adulthood.

Testing Invariance of Measures of Internalizing Symptoms Before and After a Major Life Stressor: The Impact of COVID-19 in an Adolescent and Young Adult Sample.

Abstract: There are reports of increases in levels of internalizing psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these studies presume that measurement properties of these constructs remained unchanged from before the pandemic. In this study, we examined longitudinal measurement invariance of assessments of depression, anxiety, and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) in adolescents and young adults from ongoing longitudinal studies. We found consistent support for configural and metric invariance across all constructs, but scalar invariance was unsupported for depression and IU. Thus, it is necessary to interpret pandemic-associated mean-level changes in depression and IU cautiously. In contrast, mean-level comparisons of panic, generalized, and social anxiety symptoms were not compromised. These findings are limited to the specific measures examined and the developmental period of the sample. We acknowledge that there is tremendous distress accompanying disruptions due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, for some instruments, comparisons of symptom levels before and during the pandemic may be limited.

Reward processing and depression: Current findings and future directions

Abstract: Depressive disorders are common and impairing and are currently the leading contributor to the global disease burden. Over the past decade, dysfunction in neural processing of rewards has emerged as one of the most promising biological markers for the development of depressive disorders due to the role of reward processing in reward learning and in emotions central to depressive disorders. Despite this, depressive disorders are still defined by self-reported symptoms and behavior, and research has begun to focus on identifying the pathophysiology of the disorder. The current chapter reviews relevant theory implicating reward-processing deficits in depressive disorders. We also review select behavioral, electroencephalography, and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that investigate the association between reward-processing deficits and depression risk, symptoms, and disorders, both concurrently and prospectively. An overview of a more recent line of research examining the influence of stressful life events on the link between atypical reward processing and depression is also provided. Finally, we make suggestions for future directions in research investigating the role of reward processing in depressive disorders.