Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Nearly 1 in 5 Canadians will suffer from depression at some point in their life, contributing to a total economic cost of $51 billion/year. Therefore, it is crucial that we understand the causes of depression in order to lessen the personal and societal burden of this devastating disease. One biological system involved in depression is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The HPA axis is activated in response to stress and it can be assessed by measuring the stress hormone, cortisol, following exposure to a stressor. Although we know that individuals with depression who were abused as children show heightened stress reactivity, we do not know why this is. One of the most impairing consequences of child abuse (i.e. childhood maltreatment) is difficulty controlling emotions in the face of stress (i.e. emotion regulation). The objective of this study is to examine whether poor emotion regulation can explain why maltreated individuals show heightened stress reactivity. Because the adolescent period is important to the onset of depression and to the development of emotion regulation, this study will look at emotion regulation and stress reactivity in adolescents. I expect to find that depressed, but not non- depressed, adolescents with a history of childhood maltreatment will show poor emotion regulation in comparison to those without maltreatment. Further, I expect that poor emotion regulation will account for why adolescents with a history of childhood maltreatment have heightened biological stress reactivity. Results from this study are important because poor emotion regulation is highly responsive to treatment. Thus, this knowledge may help improve mental health care in Canada by informing clinicians that treatments focusing on strategies to help regulate emotions in children with a history of maltreatment may ultimately prevent the onset of this debilitating disease.