Grant: Project Grant

Depression is common and disabling, and typically first occurs in adolescence. Once a person has had one episode of depression, they are at increased risk for subsequent episodes, and often have a poorer prognosis for treatment. Despite this, there is relatively little knowledge about brain factors that might put youth at risk for depression. The first goal of this study is to examine whether brain structure and function can predict whether a teen will become depressed for the first time in their life. We will also examine whether brain structure and function buffers or exacerbates effects of stress on depression and whether experiencing depression alters brain development over time. Participants will be adolescents with one parent with a history of depression but who have not experienced such an episode themselves. Thus, this will be a sample of youth at high risk for depression but who have yet to develop either. Participants and at least one parent will complete measures of depression, and the adolescent will complete brain scans and measures of stress. Adolescents will be interviewed every twelve months for a total of four years to assess for the occurrence of depressive episodes. We expect individual differences in structure and function in brain regions linked to emotional processing to predict the onset of depressive episodes by follow-up and that experiencing depression will be related to altered brain development.