Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms of Depression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships

Romantic relationships are one of the most salient contexts for adolescents. One of the most unpredictable, intense, and novel stressors revolves around the acquisition, maintenance and dissolution of romantic relationships. Neuroimaging studies consistently show that depressed and anxious adolescents show higher vigilance to social threat cues from unfamiliar peers, exhibiting increased activation in an affective salience network of ventral brain regions involved in attending to personally salient threats. Yet, we know little about how depression affects neural responses to social threat from a romantic partner and how these responses relate to observed and daily experiences in romantic relationships. Therefore, we study 1) whether depression moderates neural responses to social threat cues from romantic partners and unfamiliar peers 2) if neural vigilance to partner rejection is related to generation of interpersonal stress in romantic relationships. Results will be discussed from a sample of 99 adolescent romantic couples (Mage=16.33, SD=.92; 40.4%Latino). Couples participated in an adapted Chatroom Interact task in which rejection and acceptance from a romantic partner and unfamiliar peers was manipulated (Silk et al., 2012), while measuring dual EEG. Couples also participated in observed conflict discussions, as well as a twice-weekly diary study for 12 weeks to measure daily relationship experiences.

Speaker: Thao Ha, Arizona State Univ