Category: News

Early life adversity has the potential to influence brain development, biological systems, attitudes, and behaviors, which is hypothesized to subsequently affect physical and mental health in adulthood. However, the effects of these experiences vary across different domains of functioning and may not be uniform across individuals, necessitating further investigation into the genetic underpinnings of developmental outcomes through comprehensive, developmentally sensitive research designs. We also need to expand our search into both the endogenous and exogenous causal pathways at play, ranging from molecular mechanisms to the structural and broader social influences that shape life within our society. In the first presentation, Dr Larose will present the contributions of a polygenic score (PGS) for externalizing behaviors and latent profiles of neighborhood deprivation on conduct disorders during adolescence and show that the PGS and neighborhoods with crime and low-quality infrastructures both additively predict conduct disorders. Next, Dr Cantave will offer additional evidence that genetic predispositions for internalizing and externalizing problems are associated with higher risk encounter childhood adversity, although no such association is noted for peri-natal adversity. Delving deeper into the possibility that genetic factors may be confounded with early-life adversity, Dr. Ouellet-Morin will show that childhood maltreatment is more likely to arise among children with a genetic predisposition for aggression and shed light on how these experiences partly explain how the PGS predict developmental trajectories of global and reactive aggression during adolescence. Finally, using advanced genomics and translational animal models, Dr Pelufo Silveira will show that brain-specific gene networks responsive to early stress and insulin, have a sex-dependent modulation of adversity response mediated by brain insulin, particularly in dopaminergic pathways influencing behavior and decision-making.

This symposium presents a series of studies leveraging the power of experimental rodent work and human randomized clinical trials to develop efficacious large-scale screening and intervention programs to benefit maternal-child health and address needs of marginalized populations. The first presentation, by Dr. Davis, tests the benefits of reducing maternal prenatal depression on both maternal and child outcomes including preterm birth and brain development applying a randomized clinical trial (RCT) design and then presents work leveraging these findings to implement a universal community informed prevention program. The second presentation, by Dr. D’Anna-Hernandez, addresses the effect of racism and discrimination within obstetric care on maternal anxiety and depression and then applies a cross-species approach to explore underlying biological mechanisms. The third presentation, by Howland, explores prenatal psychosis and mania, which are understudied and underdiagnosed in perinatal populations, and evaluates underlying biological mechanisms and plausible tools for screening as well as links to parenting behaviors and child development. The final talk, by Dr. Glynn, presents implementation of a novel screening tool based on experimental rodent work identifying biological pathways by which unpredictability gets under the skin. This presentation then discusses applications of this research to develop screening tools developed with input from parents and community stakeholders to address unpredictability in children’s early environment. Together the talks in this symposium address critical issues in maternal-child health applying cross-species research to better understand causality and mechanisms and to develop prevention and intervention programs to serve the needs of marginalized communities.

This symposium was designed in line with the ISDP DEI Committee’s goals to increase diversity across our society, in both our membership and in our science. This symposium features early-career scientists (two assistant professors and one postdoctoral associate) from Asian, Latina, and multiracial backgrounds. Their research, significantly focusing on women of African descent and Black women, employs neuroimaging, immunobiology, and digital health approaches in both human and animal models. The dialogue will revolve around the research showcased and strategies for organizations like ISDP, developmental psychobiology graduate programs, and individual laboratories to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion among their communities and scientific endeavors.

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared social connection as a public health priority, emphasizing the critical role that social connection plays in transforming health and well-being across individuals and communities. In line with this call to action, it is essential to understand the normative neurobiological development of social relationships, including how relationships may buffer against the negative effects of stress and promote adaptive outcomes. In this symposium, we will present on various physiological and neural mechanisms by which different types of social partners affect developmental outcomes. The first two presentations focus on who can effectively buffer the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response to stress in children and adolescents. The first presentation explores whether “sharing the load” of a stressor with a close friend influences cortisol reactivity to the stressor in adolescence. The second presentation examines whether siblings can buffer the cortisol stress response for children and adolescents. The third presentation features a non-human animal model of social bonding, highlighting the neural circuitry that underlies pair bonding behaviors with romantic partners in the socially monogamous prairie vole across different age groups. The fourth presentation describes associations between caregiver-child relationships and the development of the corticolimbic tract (structure, function, and connectivity) in humans, and how these neurobiological differences relate to well-being and resilient functioning. Finally, Dr. Megan Gunnar, an expert on the neurobiological development of social relationships, will serve as the discussant, highlighting integrative themes across all four presentations and facilitating discussion of implications and future directions. In line with ISDP’s priorities, this symposium will feature research across multiple species, biological systems, methodologies, and developmental stages.