Rachel H. Jacobs, Ph.D.

Fellow in Child & Adolescent Depression

Project Details

PROJECT TITLE

Protecting Adolescents from Recurrent Depression by Targeting Rumination

PROJECT SUMMARY

Currently, approximately 50% of individuals who experience depression during their adolescence experience depression again.  No current treatments protect against the lifelong consequences of depression in one’s youth.  This project seeks to therapeutically modulate the brain circuitry underlying rumination, a passive and maladaptive thought pattern, for the purposes of reducing risk for the recurrence of depression in adolescents.  In addition to assessing the impact of a novel relapse prevention program (rumination-focused emotion regulation; RER); this study will examine the impact of rumination on the neural systems implicated in emotion regulation among adolescents.  RER has recently been tested in the prevention of first-onset depression among adolescent girls, with an observed decrease in depression scores of approximately 30%.  In applying RER to the prevention of recurrent depression, we hypothesize that RER will result in reductions in ruminative tendencies as well as normalized patterns in brain regions associated with depression and rumination when compared to adolescents in an assessment only condition.  We also hypothesize that RER will result in lower rates of depression relapse and decreases in residual depression symptoms. The availability of interventions that effectively prevent relapse is critically important in reducing the life-long consequences of depression in one’s youth.  The current design will allow for an examination of whether therapeutically modulating the brain circuits underlying rumination increases the adolescent’s emotion regulation abilities, thereby preventing depression relapse.

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