Brandon E. Gibb

Although offspring of mothers with major depressive disorder (MDD) are at heightened risk for the disorder, most never develop depression, highlighting the need to identify moderators of risk. Co-rumination, the tendency to frequently and passively discuss problems with a peer without any active problem-solving, is a known risk factor in youth and may help to identify which offspring of mothers with MDD are at greatest risk. We tested this hypothesis using data from a multi-wave longitudinal study, examining prospective changes in youths’ depressive symptoms and risk for MDD onset during the two-year follow-up. Participants were 214 children (ages 8–14 at baseline) of mothers with ( n = 106) or without ( n = 108) a history of MDD. At baseline, mothers completed a diagnostic interview, and children completed a self-report measure of co-rumination. Follow up assessments, completed every 6 months for 2 years, were used to assess depressive symptoms and the onset of MDD episodes in children. Supporting our hypothesis, among offspring of mothers with MDD, but not among offspring of never depressed mothers, higher levels of co-rumination at the baseline assessment predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in offspring at baseline the assessment that were maintained through the end of the follow-up period, as well as increased risk for the onset of MDD across the follow-up. These results highlight the role of co-rumination, which is a modifiable risk factor that may be targeted in prevention and early intervention programs to reduce risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression.

Attentional biases toward depression-relevant stimuli (e.g., sad faces) are thought to contribute to the development and maintenance of depression, but research in youth is limited and primarily cross-sectional. Therefore, it remains unclear whether such biases are risk factors for, versus consequences of, depression (or both), and whether these links may be stronger among youth already at risk for depression due to a family history of the disorder. To address these questions, the present multiwave longitudinal study followed 242 mothers and their offspring (ages 8-14; 51.65% girls, 81.40% non-Hispanic White) over 2 years with assessments every 6 months (five assessments total) to examine prospective relations between attentional biases (measured via a dot-probe eye-tracking task) and depressive symptoms in youth. Of the mothers, 123 had a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) during their child's life and the rest had no lifetime history of MDD. Using random intercepts cross-lagged panel models, we found that depressive symptoms predicted prospective changes in attentional biases, but not the reverse, and the pattern of attentional bias change differed based on maternal history of MDD. Specifically, among offspring of mothers with MDD, higher depressive symptoms at a given assessment predicted future increases in attentional bias to sad faces, whereas among offspring of never depressed mothers, higher depressive symptoms predicted subsequent decreases in attentional bias to happy faces. These findings suggest that experiences of depression may contribute to different patterns of attention to emotional cues based on maternal history of MDD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits characterized by poor empathic responding, shallow and deficient affect, and a diminished sense of guilt, are at risk for developing emotional and beha...

The goal of this study was to clarify the contribution of prefrontal cortex activity to men’s appraisals, affect states, and decision making in the context of hypothetical heterosexual dating scenarios lacking clear consent. Transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS) was applied to the prefrontal cortex to examine whether it would modify and reduce the likelihood of hypothetical dating violence. Participants (n = 102) responded to first-person vignettes wherein a woman responded either ambiguously or with a refusal to their sexual advance. While responding to the vignettes, participants received sham or active tDCS to modulate prefrontal cortex-mediated responding. Neuromodulation interacted with the communication response type of the woman in the vignette (e.g. ambiguous vs. refusal responses) to influence participants’ reports of negative affect (F = 9.57, P = 0.002, Cohen’s f2 = 0.02) and their sexual decision making (F = 5.06, P = 0.025, Cohen’s f2 = 0.003). For example, participants that received a refusal from a woman while receiving tDCS were more likely to report greater negative affect and a reduced likelihood of sexual behavior as compared with vignettes including an ambiguous response. These findings highlight the complex interplay of situational context on affect and social behavior while providing initial support for the utility of brain stimulation techniques in developing a mechanistic, neurocognitive understanding of the prefrontal cortex’s role in men's sexual decision making in dating scenarios.

Guided by steeling and hormesis models, this paper examined parenting adversity as a quadratic predictor of children’s emotion knowledge and effortful control and, in turn, their internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Participants were 238 mothers, partners, and their preschool children (M _age = 4.38 years; 52% female). Multiple methods (i.e., observations, interviews, surveys, q-sorts) and informants (i.e., trained observers, experimenters, mothers, children, teachers) were used in a longitudinal design with three annual measurement occasions. Supporting the first link in the mediational cascade, lagged, autoregressive analyses indicated that a quadratic composite of parenting adversity derived from trained observer ratings of parenting at Wave 1 was a significant predictor of children’s emotion knowledge and effortful control at Wave 2. In the second part of the proposed cascade, children’s Wave 2 emotion knowledge predicted lower levels of their Wave 3 internalizing symptoms, while their Wave 2 effortful control predicted lower levels of their Wave 3 externalizing symptoms. Consistent with steeling effects, curvilinear findings in the first part of the cascade indicated that moderate levels of exposure to parenting adversity predicted the highest levels of children’s subsequent emotion knowledge and effortful control. Children also exhibited substantially diminished emotion knowledge and effortful control as their exposure to family adversity increased from moderate to high levels.

Genome-wide association studies have allowed for the creation of polygenic scores (PGSs) reflecting genetic liability for depression, yet recent work suggests that these PGSs may also reflect greater genetic propensity towards higher levels of stress exposure. The current study sought to extend prior findings to examine whether an established depression PGS (DEP-PGS) is associated with greater stress exposure at the neighborhood level in a sample of preadolescent children. This study included 278 children of European ancestry between the ages of 7 and 11 (45.3% female) and their parent. Parents and children completed clinical interviews and questionnaires and children provided genetic samples. Children’s neighborhoods were defined based on their current home address and geocoded indices of neighborhood adversity (i.e., area socioeconomic disadvantage, crime, opportunity) were matched to zip codes. As hypothesized, children with greater genetic liability for depression as reflected by DEP-PGSs were more likely to live in neighborhoods characterized by greater adversity. Findings were maintained when statistically controlling for family socioeconomic status and parent’s and children’s histories of depression and anxiety. The current findings build upon prior research highlighting depression-relevant gene-environment correlations and extend this work to provide evidence that DEP-PGSs may capture genetic liability for exposure to stressful contexts at the neighborhood level. Future research is needed to replicate findings in diverse samples and to examine whether neighborhood-level adversity mediates the relation between DEP-PGSs and future depression risk in youth.

Self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs), encompassing both nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidality, are a growing public health concern in youth. Although maternal depression is a well-established risk factor for psychopathology in offspring, less is known about protective factors that may mitigate this risk. Peer social support, particularly during the transition to adolescence, may play a critical role in reducing risk for SITBs, yet limited research has examined the potential impact of different domains of peer influence (e.g., close friends versus classmates) as specific and distinct facets of the peer environment. In a two-year longitudinal study, we assessed SITBs in 215 children (ages 8–14), half of whom had mothers with a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) during their child’s life. We hypothesized that maternal MDD would predict increased risk of SITBs in children but that higher levels of peer social support would buffer this effect. Survival analyses confirmed that children of mothers with MDD were over twice as likely to develop SITBs during the follow-up. Importantly, higher levels of social support from classmates uniquely predicted reduced risk for SITBs in children, even after accounting for the influence of maternal MDD history. Our findings highlight the role of broad peer environments in protecting against SITBs in youth. These results underscore the importance of school-based interventions that foster social inclusion as potential preventive measures for SITBs.

Childhood emotional abuse has been linked to the development of various forms of psychopathology in adulthood. Evidence suggests that one mechanism for this risk may be heightened reactivity to future stress. [(Angelakis et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2018)](#ref-0001)The goal of this study was to examine a psychophysiological marker of stress reactivity, respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA). Specifically, in a sample of young adults oversampled for histories of childhood emotional abuse, we collected electrocardiography for indexing RSA during a standardized laboratory-based stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). We predicted that higher levels of childhood emotional abuse would be associated with lower levels of resting RSA during the baseline period of the TSST and greater RSA reactivity (reductions) during the anticipation and stress phases of the TSST. Partially supporting our hypotheses, a history of childhood emotional abuse was associated greater RSA reactivity, but only during the anticipation phase of the TSST. These results provide partial support for my hypothesis, suggesting that emotional abuse may increase stress sensitivity at the anticipation of stressors in young adults.