Stress Trajectories and Anhedonia in Adolescence Research Study

Summary

This project will examine how multiple biological measures from the brain and the body's stress response system contribute to anhedonia (the loss of pleasure) in adolescence. The goal of this project is to see if it is possible to combine these biological measures to describe different patterns of activity in the brain and body that adolescents may have in response to stress.

The main question this study aims to answer is whether different patterns of activity in the brain and body are related to whether adolescents develop anhedonia and how high or low levels of anhedonia are over time.

This study will enroll 192 adolescents who are between 13 and 15 years. Adolescents will complete tasks three times: at the beginning of the study, 10 months after that, and then 10 months after that. In total, they will be part of the study for 20 months. At each time, adolescents will complete surveys, provide samples of spit to measure hormones and provide pictures of their brain to measure brain activity, participate in mildly stressful tasks, and complete different activities that measure how they think. The investigators will also ask each adolescent's parent or legal guardian to answer some surveys about themselves and their child.

Conditions

• Anhedonia
• Stress Response
• Adolescent Development

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Montreal Imaging Stress Task

Psychosocial stress procedure consisting of completing sections of mental arithmetic that are 5.5 minutes in length, during which the individual receives neutral and negative evaluative feedback about their performance relative to their peers.

BEHAVIORAL

Trier Social Stress Test for Children

Psychosocial stress procedure in which the individual tells a story for 5 minutes in front of two neutral judges and performs mental arithmetic in front of the judges for 5 minutes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

  collaborator NIH

• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Aysenil Belger, PhD · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Danielle Roubinov, PhD · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

13 Years

Max Age

15 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-03-12

Primary Completion

2030-02-28

Completion

2030-02-28

Countries

• United States

Study Locations