Exposure to Parental Depression in Adolescence and Risk for Metabolic Syndrome in Adulthood

Exposure to parental depression in adolescence and proinflammatory phenotypes 20 years later

Although the biological embedding model of adversity proposes that stressful experiences in childhood create a durable proinflammatory phenotype in immune cells, research to date has relied on study designs that limit our ability to make conclusions about whether the phenotype is long-lasting. The present study leverages an ongoing 20-year investigation of African American youth to test research questions about the extent to which stressors measured in childhood forecast a proinflammatory phenotype in adulthood, as indicated by exaggerated cytokine responses to bacterial stimuli, monocyte insensitivity to inhibitory signals from hydrocortisone, and low-grade inflammation. Parents reported on their depressive symptoms and unsupportive parenting tendencies across youths' adolescence. At age 31, youth participants (now adults) completed a fasting blood draw. Samples were incubated with lipopolysaccharide and doses of hydrocortisone to evaluate proinflammatory processes. Additionally, blood samples were tested for indicators of low-grade inflammation, including IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and TNF-α, and soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor. Analyses revealed that parental depression across youths' adolescence prospectively predicted indicators of proinflammatory phenotypes at age 31. Follow-up analyses suggested that unsupportive parenting mediated these associations. These findings suggest that exposure to parental depression in adolescence leaves an imprint on inflammatory activity that can be observed 20 years later.

Maternal depression and adolescent optimism

The life course perspective posits that parents' and children's lives are linked through shared experiences and interdependent contexts such as the household. In this paper, we draw on the life course perspective to examine the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent optimism, an important trait that reflects adolescents' positive expectations for the future, and how features of the family context explain this association. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3013), taking advantage of the study's longitudinal measures of maternal depression that span a 15-year period. First, we find that current maternal depression is negatively associated with optimism among adolescents. Second, we find that the family environment and parent-child relationships, but not economic wellbeing, explain the association between maternal depression and adolescent optimism. These findings inform our understanding of how parent and adolescent wellbeing are linked and, importantly, how the family environment conditions how adolescents envision their futures.

Adiposity and Smoking Mediate the Relationship Between Depression History and Inflammation Among Young Adults

BACKGROUND

Depression is associated with inflammation, but the mechanisms underlying this association are unclear. We examined adiposity and smoking as potential pathways through which childhood depression may lead to an elevated inflammatory status among young adults.

METHODS

The sample included 294 subjects with histories of depression (probands), 270 never-depressed siblings of probands (high-risk siblings), and 169 controls. C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) were assessed in serum samples. An adiposity score was computed from body mass index and waist circumference. Smoking behavior was evaluated during an interview. Mixed-effects models were used to test whether adiposity and smoking mediate the relationship between depression and inflammation.

RESULTS

Probands (p = .004), but not siblings (p = .071), had higher levels of sICAM-1 compared to controls. However, depression history and risk status had no direct effects on CRP (ps > .13) or IL-6 (ps > .16). Importantly, adiposity indirectly mediated the effect of group (probands vs. controls; siblings vs. controls) on all three inflammatory markers. Smoking indirectly mediated the effect of group (probands vs. controls; siblings vs. controls) on sICAM-1 only.

CONCLUSIONS

Among young adults, the adverse inflammatory consequences of depression history are significant for sICAM-1. Adiposity and smoking are pathways through which depression can indirectly impact several inflammatory markers, suggesting possible preventive interventions to improve the immunologic and cardiovascular health of depression-prone individuals.

Adolescent stress sensitizes the adult neuroimmune transcriptome and leads to sex-specific microglial and behavioral phenotypes

Adolescent exposure to chronic stress, a risk factor for mood disorders in adulthood, sensitizes the neuroinflammatory response to a subsequent immune challenge. We previously showed that chronic adolescent stress (CAS) in rats led to distinct patterns of neuroimmune priming in adult male and female rats. However, sex differences in the neuroimmune consequences of CAS and their underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here we hypothesized that biological sex would dictate differential induction of inflammation-related transcriptomic pathways and immune cell involvement (microglia activation and leukocyte presence) in the hippocampus of male and female rats with a history of CAS. Adolescent rats underwent CAS (six restraint and six social defeat episodes during postnatal days 38-49), and behavioral assessments were conducted in adolescence and adulthood. Neuroimmune measures were obtained following vehicle or a systemic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge in adulthood. CAS led to increased time in the corners of the open field in adolescence. In males, CAS also increased social avoidance. As adults, CAS rats displayed an exaggerated enrichment of the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NFκB) pathway and chemokine induction following LPS challenge, and increased number of perivascular CD45⁺ cells in the hippocampus. However, CAS females, but not males, showed exaggerated glucocorticoid receptor (GR) pathway enrichment and increased microglial complexity. These results provide further insight to the mechanisms by which peripheral immune events may influence neuroimmune responses differentially among males and females and further demonstrate the importance of adolescent stress in shaping adult responses.

How does the social world shape health across the lifespan? Insights and new directions

Decades of research highlight the connections between stressful life experiences-particularly those experienced in childhood-and physical health across the lifespan. In recent years, studies at the intersection of social and biomedical science have provided intriguing insights into the biological mechanisms that might explain how chronic and acute stressors give rise to health problems, sometimes decades later in life. To date, efforts to understand these connections have relied on a handful of study designs, and these studies have revealed important observations about how stressful experiences are thought to shape health. At the same time, these study designs have some drawbacks that limit the conclusions that can be drawn about the role of the social world for health. This article provides an overview of research on social determinants of health and includes a discussion of conceptual and methodological directions for the field to consider. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Persistence of skin-deep resilience in African American adults

OBJECTIVE

The skin-deep resilience pattern suggests that, for low-socioeconomic-status African American youths, the ability to maintain high self-control and to persist with efforts to succeed may act as a double-edged sword, facilitating academic success and adjustment while undermining physical health. We extend research by following a sample of rural African Americans, asking whether the skin-deep resilience pattern, evident during adolescence, persists into adulthood by increasing susceptibility to metabolic syndrome (MetS) and insulin resistance (IR).

METHODS

The sample included 368 11-year-old African Americans, their parents, and their teachers. Parents provided data on family poverty across ages 11-18 years. Teachers provided data on youths' planful self-control across ages 11-13 years. At age 27 years, participants completed questionnaires about educational attainment and psychological adjustment and provided a fasting blood sample from which MetS and IR were assessed.

RESULTS

Regardless of years spent living in poverty, planful self-control during childhood was associated with college graduation (p < .001) and with low levels of depressive symptoms (p = .016) and antisocial behavior (p = .028). For participants exhibiting high levels of self-control, however, living more years in poverty across adolescence was associated with a greater number of MetS components that met clinical cutoff criteria (p = .018) and greater IR (p = .016) during adulthood.

CONCLUSIONS

The skin-deep resilience pattern persists into adulthood, particularly among those who spent more of their adolescence living in poverty, and increases vulnerability to MetS and IR while it also promotes college graduation and positive psychological adjustment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).