Emotional Granularity and Interoceptive Accuracy: Affective Skills Linking Dimensions of Childhood Adversity with Adolescent Stress Vulnerability

Childhood adversity is common and increases risk for multiple forms of psychopathology emerging in adolescence. Heightened sensitivity to stress is one pathway through which childhood adversity may increase mental health risk, such that stressful life events are more likely to lead to psychopathology in those who have experienced childhood adversity. However, understanding of the impacts of childhood adversity has been limited by conceptualization of adversity as a single construct and a focus on physiological mechanisms, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, that are challenging to intervene upon. Considerable evidence supports the assertion that the impacts of adverse experiences on neural, cognitive, and affective functioning can be categorized along dimensions of deprivation and threat. The proposed project investigates how deprivation and threat may comprise two key affective skills through which youth reduce uncertainty to navigate stressors in their daily lives: interoception and emotional granularity. Interoception is the brain’s modeling of the state of the body. Youth exposed to threat may have lower interoceptive accuracy following stressors, increasing mental health vulnerability to stress. Youth who experience high levels of deprivation are likely not exposed to experiences that support them in developing well differentiated emotion concepts and may consequently have low emotional granularity, increasing their vulnerability to stress. The target sample is 200 adolescents and young adults aged 11-20 years sampled to ensure high variability in exposure to deprivation and threat. Participants will complete a baseline visit, engage in Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) over 14 days, and complete an online 18- month follow-up assessment. Childhood adversity, emotional granularity, interoceptive accuracy, stress, and psychopathology will be assessed through multimodal assessments including questionnaires, structured interviews, behavioral tasks, psychophysiology, and EMA. Analyses will evaluate the association between threat and interoceptive accuracy (Aim 1), the association between deprivation and emotional granularity (Aim 2), the role interoceptive accuracy in mental health vulnerability to stress (Aim 3), and the role of emotional granularity in mental health vulnerability to stress (Aim 4). Interoception and emotional granularity are common targets for existing interventions. However, their role in the link between childhood adversity and psychopathology remains under-identified. This research has the potential to establish important sources of risk and resilience for youth exposed to adversity with clear applications to treatment and preclinical interventions. Students will be integral to executing every aspect of this research plan, including task development, recruitment, data collection, data processing, and data analysis. The execution of this research will provide in-depth research experience to these students, launching them on a path toward careers in biomedical science.