Long Yinru, Pegg Samantha, Bean Christian A L, Kittleson Andrew, Clark Kirsty, Kujawa Autumn
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA.
J Mood Anxiety Disord. 2024 Dec;8. doi: 10.1016/j.xjmad.2024.100090. Epub 2024 Oct 9.
Sexual minority (SM) youth are at increased risk of depression and suicidal ideation (SI), due in part to discrimination and other stressors. This raises questions about social factors that may increase risk or resilience to stressors commonly faced by SM youth. The goal of this multimethod study was to examine both neural processing of social feedback and perceived social support as potential moderators of the association between SM identity, depressive symptoms, and endorsement of SI in adolescents. For this study, 165 adolescents aged 14-17 (22.42 % identifying as SM) were oversampled for current depression. Participants self-reported social support, depressive symptoms, and SI. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded while participants completed a computerized peer interaction task in which the reward positivity (RewP) component was measured in response to social acceptance vs. rejection feedback. We tested social RewP and social support as moderators of associations between SM identity, depressive symptoms, and whether SI was reported. SM youth reported lower social support and elevated depressive symptoms and were more likely to endorse SI compared to non-SM youth. Social RewP moderated the associations between SM identity, depressive symptoms, and SI such that SM youth with blunted neural responses to social acceptance had higher depression and were more likely to endorse SI. Lower social support was associated with greater depressive symptoms and SI, but social support was not a significant moderator of the association between SM identity and symptoms. This is among the first studies to use affective neuroscience methods to examine social processes in SGM youth and our findings underscore the role of social factors in SGM youth mental health.
性少数群体（SM）青年患抑郁症和自杀意念（SI）的风险增加，部分原因是歧视和其他压力源。这引发了关于社会因素的问题，这些因素可能会增加SM青年普遍面临的压力源的风险或恢复力。这项多方法研究的目的是检查社会反馈的神经处理和感知到的社会支持，作为青少年SM身份、抑郁症状和SI认同之间关联的潜在调节因素。在这项研究中，对165名14 - 17岁的青少年（22.42% 认定为SM）进行了过度抽样，以研究当前的抑郁症情况。参与者自我报告了社会支持、抑郁症状和SI。在参与者完成一项计算机化的同伴互动任务时记录脑电图（EEG），在该任务中，根据社会接受与拒绝反馈测量奖励积极性（RewP）成分。我们测试了社会RewP和社会支持作为SM身份、抑郁症状和是否报告SI之间关联的调节因素。与非SM青年相比，SM青年报告的社会支持较低，抑郁症状较高，并且更有可能认同SI。社会RewP调节了SM身份、抑郁症状和SI之间的关联，使得对社会接受的神经反应迟钝的SM青年有更高的抑郁水平，并且更有可能认同SI。较低的社会支持与更严重的抑郁症状和SI相关，但社会支持不是SM身份与症状之间关联的显著调节因素。这是首批使用情感神经科学方法研究性取向、性别认同和性别表达不同（SGM）青年社会过程的研究之一，我们的研究结果强调了社会因素在SGM青年心理健康中的作用。
