An Investigation of Early Life Stress and Depression

Summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate brain pathways within adult females (with a history of CSA that occurred between the ages of 5-14) with and without a current diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD). Hypotheses: The CSA/MDD participants will be characterized by (1) reduced reward responsiveness and prefrontal cortex activity, but increased cortisol levels, (2) reduced dopamine activity, and (3) reduced dopamine transporter binding. The over-arching purpose of the study is to (1) identify individuals at risk for psychopathology and maladaptive behavior, (2) prevent re-victimization, and (3) develop more targeted therapeutic interventions.

Timeline

Start

2013-08

Primary completion

2017-05

Completion

2017-05

Publications

• Results Kaiser RH, Clegg R, Goer F, Pechtel P, Beltzer M, Vitaliano G, Olson DP, Teicher MH, Pizzagalli DA. Childhood stress, grown-up brain networks: corticolimbic correlates of threat-related early life stress and adult stress response. Psychol Med. 2018 May;48(7):1157-1166. doi: 10.1017/S0033291717002628. Epub 2017 Sep 25.
• Liu Y, Admon R, Mellem MS, Belleau EL, Kaiser RH, Clegg R, Beltzer M, Goer F, Vitaliano G, Ahammad P, Pizzagalli DA. Machine Learning Identifies Large-Scale Reward-Related Activity Modulated by Dopaminergic Enhancement in Major Depression. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2020 Feb;5(2):163-172. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.10.002. Epub 2019 Oct 22.

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