RUI: Effects of Adverse and Buffering Childhood Experiences on Neural Markers of Emotion Regulation in Young Adulthood

Early-life stress and adversity are known to have a negative impact on the developing brain, increasing risk for outcomes such as poor physical and mental health over the lifespan. The experience of adversity in childhood is relatively common in the general population, but the many pathways through which adversities affect development are not fully understood.

The objective of this project is to better understand one aspect of how adversity may affect brain and cognition by examining the relationship between early life stress and the ability to regulate emotional responses to both unpleasant and pleasant information. The project tests whether a specific neural marker of emotional reactivity is poorly regulated in young adults with a history of greater early-life stress, compared to those with lower levels of life stress.

This research occurs at a primarily undergraduate institution and provides mentored research experiences for about a dozen undergraduate students with a focus on electrophysiological data collection and analysis methods, as well as interactions with the wider scientific community, strengthening their STEM training.

The project includes three studies that test the correlation between reports of early-life experiences and an EEG (electroencephalography) brainwave signal referred to as the late positive potential (LPP). The LPP signal, generated from broad regions of posterior cortex and measurable with scalp electrode recordings, is known to be elevated when people view pictures with emotional meaning.

Furthermore, the LPP can be downregulated by voluntary cognitive reframing, such as thinking about the image in a less threatening way. Study 1 tests whether the ability to decrease the LPP response to unpleasant pictures by cognitive reframing is compromised in young adults with a history of adversity. Study 2 tests whether the ability to voluntarily increase the LPP response to pleasant pictures, a process known as “savoring,” is also compromised in those with early-life stress.

Study 3 investigates whether people with different levels of adverse experiences are able to make adaptive choices about which strategies to use to modify their brain’s LPP response to emotional pictures. The project also investigates the possible role of executive functioning skills in the path linking adversity and the ability to regulate emotion.

Together, the studies aim to better understand one mechanism that may connect early-life stress with altered psychological outcomes.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.