Judith K. Morgan, Ph.D.

Fellow in Child & Adolescent Depression

Project Details

PROJECT TITLE

Development of Adolescent Depression: Role of Mother-Child Concordance of Reward and Oxytocin Systems

PROJECT SUMMARY

To understand the development of adolescent depression, this study will examine brain function and endocrine characteristics of social and emotional development in adolescents with a maternal history of depression (i.e., high-risk adolescents) and their mothers. We propose that mother-adolescent interactions characterized by low levels of positive emotion and warmth disrupt function in the brain’s reward circuit, which underlies positive emotions, and the release of oxytocin, a neuropeptide critical for adaptive social behavior.  In turn, this creates a circular pattern of low positivity and potentially leads to depression. To test this model, fifty 11- to 14-year old adolescents and their birth mothers (half with a history of depression) will complete a laboratory discussion about a positive future experience—their next family vacation—and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. We will observe positive affective behavior and sample change in salivary oxytocin during the discussion, and the fMRI scan will include tasks involving winning money and seeing videos of their vacation discussion. We will measure adolescents’ depressive symptoms during the laboratory visit and again 6 months later, in order to test how brain function and oxytocin levels predict increases in depressive symptoms. Examining the associations of family environment, brain function, oxytocin reactivity, and depression during the transition to adolescence may provide a deeper understanding of how depression develops, pointing toward brain mechanisms that can be the focus of new treatments.

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