1,721,103 research outputs found
Changes in Family Cohesion and Links to Depression during the College Transition
Get PDFParent relationships remain an important component in the lives of adolescents, with particular respect to their well-being. In the current study, we sought to understand how changes in family cohesion across the high school-college transition may be related to changes in depressive symptoms. Three hundred and thirty-eight college freshman completed self-report measures prior to attending college and again two months into their first semester. Although depressive symptoms significantly increased, adolescents who reported increases in family cohesion reported declines in depressive symptoms during the college transition. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by changes in self-esteem and optimism. Finally, we show unique associations for male and female adolescents, such that changes in family cohesion were only related to changes in depression for girls. Results suggest that parent relationships may buffer against increased depressive symptoms during this important transition period.Submitted by Heidi Johnson ([email protected]) on 2015-05-26T21:30:14Z
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Previous issue date: 2015-05Ope
Adaptive adolescent flexibility: neurodevelopment of decision-making and learning in a risky context
Get PDFThe student, Ethan McCormick, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2016-04-18 at 14:37.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2016-04-19 at 11:33.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #9305 on 2016-07-07 at 13:50:00Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-07T20:27:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Previous issue date: 2016-04-19Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 93136
Lift date: 2018-07-07T20:28:14Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemEmbargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 93136
Lift date: 2018-07-07T20:35:34Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 93136 on 2018-07-08T09:15:33Z.Research on adolescence has largely focused on the particular biological and neural changes that place teens at risk for negative outcomes linked to increases in sensation-seeking and risky behavior. However, there is a growing interest in the adaptive function of adolescence, with work highlighting the dual nature of adolescence as a period of potential risk and opportunity. We examined how behavioral and neural sensitivity to risk and reward vary as a function of age using the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). Seventy-seven children and adolescents (ages 8-17 years) completed the BART during an fMRI session. Results indicate that adolescents show greater exploration and learning across the task. Furthermore, older participants showed increased neural responses to reward in the OFC and ventral striatum, increased activation to risk in the right SFG and MCC, as well as increased functional OFC-mPFC coupling in both risk and reward contexts. Age-related changes in regional activity and inter-regional connectivity explain the link between age-related increases in flexible exploration and learning. These results support the idea that adolescents' sensitivity to risk and reward supports adaptive behavioral approaches for reward acquisition.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2018-05-01The student, Ethan McCormick, accepted the attached license on 2016-04-18 at 14:36
Relationship between trait anxiety, prefrontal cortex, and attention bias to angry faces in children and adolescents
No full textUsing event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a visual-probe task thatassesses attention to threat, we investigated the cognitive and neurophysiological correlates of traitanxiety in youth. During fMRI acquisition, 16 healthy children and adolescents viewed angry-neutralface pairs and responded to a probe that was on the same (angry-congruent) or opposite (angryincongruent)side as the angry face. Attention bias scores were calculated by subtracting participants’mean reaction time for angry-congruent trials from angry-incongruent trials. Trait anxiety waspositively associated with attention bias towards angry faces. Neurophysiologically, trait anxiety waspositively associated with right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation on a contrast of trialsthat reflect the attention bias for angry faces (i.e., angry-incongruent versus angry-congruent trials).Trait anxiety was also positively associated with right ventrolateral PFC activation on trials with facestimuli (versus baseline), irrespective of their emotional content
Investigating the Mediating Role of Perspective Taking and Empathy on Racial Discrimination and Brain Activation
No full textRacial discrimination greatly impacts the mental and physical well-being of an individual. Adolescents who identify as racial minorities may be especially vulnerable to the effects of racial discrimination because of the significant neurodevelopmental and social changes that occur during adolescence. Previous studies have shown that TPJ activation may be influenced by race-related constructs, however no study has assessed the relationship between racial discrimination and TPJ activation, a brain region involved in other-oriented processes. The current study assessed the mediating role of empathy and perspective taking in the relationship between racial discrimination and TPJ activation. Participants included 45 racially diverse adolescents (46% female) from ages 13-16. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure experiences of racial discrimination, empathy, perspective-taking, and prosocial risk behaviors. In the functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner adolescents completed a risk-taking task where they took risks for close others. Using a mediation regression model, results suggested racial discrimination does not predict TPJ activation, nor did empathy and perspective-taking mediate this relationship. The linear regression analysis suggested that racial discrimination does not predict prosocial risk taking.Bachelor of Scienc
The Role of Implicit Family Conflict and Depression on Adolescent Risk Taking
Get PDFAdolescence is a period marked by increased risk taking, which can have negative implications for adolescent health and well-being. Researchers have found that family conflict and adolescent depression are each correlated with adolescents’ engagement in risky behavior, such that greater conflict and heightened depression are associated with increased risk taking. However, much of prior research has focused on more explicit forms of family conflict, such as fighting and arguing. The goals of the present study were to investigate whether implicit family conflict is more predictive of adolescent risk taking than explicit conflict and determine if adolescent depression moderates this relationship. Participants included 174 adolescents, ages 11-14, along with their parents. Both adolescents and parents completed a behavioral task in which they each rated a series of risky behaviors. The discrepancy between parent and adolescents’ risk attitudes in this task was used to measure implicit family conflict. In addition to this task, adolescents completed several questionnaires in which they reported explicit family conflict, depressive symptoms, and their engagement in risky behaviors. I conducted a series of stepwise multiple regressions to analyze the relationship between implicit family conflict, depression, and risk taking. Our findings indicate that implicit family conflict predicted adolescent risk taking above and beyond explicit conflict. I also found adolescent depression to be a significant predictor of risk taking. However, depression did not moderate the relationship between implicit family conflict and adolescent risk taking. The participants in this study were younger adolescents whose overall engagement in risk taking was low. Future research should explore the relationship between implicit family conflict and adolescent risk taking among older adolescents and how it relates to specific types of risky behavior, as older adolescents are more likely to engage in greater, more negative risk taking.Bachelor of Art
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Using Neural Measures of Risk Taking to Predict Binge Drinking Behavior in Late Adolescence
Get PDFReal-world risk-taking behaviors peak during the transition from high school to college, perhaps due to increased opportunity to engage in such behaviors. Examining longitudinal changes in the association between neural sensitivity to risky decision making and real-life risk-taking behavior may elucidate the underlying mechanisms that motivate increased risk-taking behavior during late adolescence. The goal of the present study was to understand how brain regions implicated in risky decision making differentially predict concurrent and longitudinal changes in real-life risky behavior. Forty college freshmen completed an experimental risk-taking task during fMRI, in which taking risks could benefit either themselves or their best friend, allowing us to understand risky decision making across different social contexts. Participants reported their frequency of binge drinking at the initial visit (n = 40) and a follow-up visit nine months later (n = 35). We first conducted logistic regressions to analyze the relationship between behavior on the fMRI task and concurrent and longitudinal changes in binge drinking. Our findings showed that task behavior predicts concurrent binge drinking behavior but does not predict longitudinal changes in binge drinking. Using the brain-as-predictor model, we conducted logistic regressions to analyze the relationship between brain activation in four a priori regions of interest during the fMRI task and concurrent and longitudinal changes in binge drinking behavior. Our findings showed that brain activation during the task does not significantly predict concurrent or longitudinal changes in binge drinking behavior. Future research should further probe the contexts in which brain activation is predictive of real-life risk-taking behavior – beyond binge drinking – during late adolescence.Bachelor of Scienc
Experiences of racial discrimination and adolescent neural sensitivity to social threats and rewards
No full textMarginalized groups experience frequent racial discrimination, making them more perceptive to social cues. During adolescence, individuals become even more perceptive to such cues due to increased social cognition. Examining neural responses to social cues can provide insight into our understanding of how experiencing racial discrimination might “get under the skin.” One hundred forty-five adolescents (Mage = 14.23) participated in a longitudinal experimental study which entailed responding to an extensive questionnaire as well as completing a task within an fMRI scanner. Experiences of Racial Discrimination scores (EOD) were calculated for participants who self-identified as members of marginalized groups. Results show that EOD scores were correlated with neural processing of social threat/reward anticipation and outcomes. At the neural level, teens showed increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the cerebellum for threat and reward anticipation, respectively. For the outcome condition, we found dampened responses to threat in the angular, frontal and middle gyrus, and enhanced responses to reward in the right postcentral gyrus. The results of this study show that experiences or racial discrimination are in fact associated with neural responses within adolescents’ brains.
Keywords: social threat; racial discrimination; adolescence; fMRIBachelor of Scienc
How Adolescents’ Resiliency Mitigates the Relation Between Household Dysfunction and Maladaptive Behavior
Get PDFAdverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, impact adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing behaviors. However, personal and interpersonal resilience factors may buffer the effects of ACEs on adolescent psychopathology. The present study explored how specific resilience factors (i.e., personal well-being, family connectedness, and peer connectedness) prospectively buffered against the negative effects of household dysfunction on externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Household dysfunction was measured by assessing parental incarceration, substance use, mental illness, and marital status. Participants (52% female) included 176 adolescents with various racial and ethnic identities (White = 30%, Black = 23%, Hispanic/Latino = 35%, Multi-Racial = 9%, and 3% other racial/ethnic identities) aged 11-14 years old during the first wave of data collection and 12-15 years old during the second wave. Results indicated that household dysfunction served as a risk factor for adolescent externalizing behaviors at extremely low levels of family connectedness. Furthermore, this finding suggests that higher levels of family connectedness may be protective as these levels did not possess a significant association between household dysfunction and externalizing behaviors. However, peer connectedness and well-being were not shown to be protective against externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Per these results, prevention and intervention methods for adolescent externalizing behaviors may be most successful when focusing on improving connections within the family.Bachelor of Art
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